NEWPORT County boss Jimmy Dack wants his players to embrace playing at Rodney Parade, but admits his squad is lacking a prolific striker.

The Exiles were beaten for the third successive time at Rodney Parade on Tuesday night after Mansfield’s smash and grab raid.

County registered fourteen shots but only one on target as their lack of goals again proved costly.

And Dack is desperate to see an improvement in Newport’s front men, even though he admits they lack a little on quality in the final third.

"I couldn't put how I'm feeling into words, I'm really frustrated,” he said.

"I have to choose my words carefully, the players give their all, but we lack a bit of guile in the final third.

"Everyone's having shots from 25 yards out when a pass is there to play. I keep chopping and changing the forwards, but we know we've got what we've got and we can't get any more in.

"We have to persevere and hopefully they start finding form and we can get going again.

"We're still seventh in the league, we're still in there, but we need to get our home form right.

"Our home form is a massive concern. Your home form takes you to where you want to be and ours isn't good at the moment.

“Players win you football matches and in the business end of your season, you need your top players to make the difference.

“On Saturday at Burton they did that, and on Tuesday they didn’t.”

However, Dack doesn’t want the players to prefer away visits to their home comforts.

“I don’t think we should fear playing in front of our crowd, our home form is a burden and has become a problem and we are trying to put our finger on the reason why.

“We had 14 chances on Tuesday night and only one on target, it’s so frustrating and we’ve got to have that little bit of quality to score a goal which we are lacking at home at the moment.

“We will try shuffling the pack again, the players are giving their all but that’s not enough, we need more quality.

“We’ve got to find the missing ingredients; it’s down to the players to find some more form and guile in the final third to get us over the line.

“We should be embracing playing at home, not fretting and worrying about it.

“It’s about taking chances, we’ve got the players we’ve got to work with and need to try and get them scoring. There is no room to bring in loan players now. We’ve got to work hard and find some form up there.

“We probably lack a 20-goal a season striker, that’s not rocket science, you don’t get many chances in League Two and you’ve got to take them.”

Dack could be boosted ahead of the Stevenage trip though.

“Hopefully we’ll have Aaron O’Connor and Robbie Willmott back from injury and that will help us,” he said.