Skipper reflects on Newport draw
Burton Albion midfielder Lee Bell says he felt a 1-1 draw at Newport County on Easter Monday was a fair result.
The Brewers came from behind to pick up a draw in South Wales, and the Brewers’ skipper praised the hard work of his team-mates.
“We’re pleased with a point in the end. It’s a hard place to come with their crowd and they had a right go at us. They tried to use the one day rest advantage on us but I thought a point was fair. They had a bit more possession but we looked dangerous every time we went forward.
“We knew what it was going to be today. The manager made a few changes and a bit of tiredness may have crept in a bit. We knew we had to dig deep today and it was all about wanting a bit more than them.
“We’re pleased with a point, but we wanted to win and to stay in contention for the top three. It wasn’t to be and now we’ll focus our thoughts and attentions on the play-offs,” he said.
Albion’s leveller came through Michael Symes’ first-half penalty, a decision which Bell says the referee got right.
“It was definitely a penalty. The problem was that their lad fell over in the box when they wanted the penalty, whereas there was contact for ours. People thought they were the same but they weren’t.
“I’m delighted for Symesy to come and score He’s a very talented footballer and he’s done really well when he’s played this season .Both him and Dominic Knowles worked really hard in working their back line,” said Bell.
Alex MacDonald hit the post late on as the Brewers went for all three points, but with the top three all but out of reach, Bell now wants to focus on securing promotion through the play-offs.
“You never really know whether you could have won it on another day. On the balance of play today I’d say a point was about right. The disappointing thing for us is that we’re not in contention for the top three, but our focus is now on the play-offs.
“Of course we’re disappointed not to make the top three, but we can’t be too disappointed. We have a home game this weekend on Chesterfield where we want to go out there and show we’re better than them so we go again on Sunday and have a right go at the play-offs.
“We need to do better than we did last year. We want to go one further and get to Wembley and win it. We don’t want a day out, we want to win the play-offs.”