WARREN Feeney admitted he is concerned by his team’s tendency to concede early goals.

In three of the first four games of the season Newport County AFC were undone by late goals against Mansfield Town, MK Dons and Luton Town.

But last week at Hartlepool United they conceded after 95 seconds and they easily beat that record at Rodney Parade on Saturday.

Barnet’s John Akinde latched on to Ben Tomlinson’s flick-on to guide the ball past Joe Day and into the bottom corner with a left foot volley with just 23 seconds on the clock.

In the end it didn’t matter as heavy rain caused the match to be abandoned at half-time but Feeney is not happy with his defence.

“We can’t keep giving teams head starts,” he said. “We didn’t start the game right and we could have been 2-0 down because they hit the bar.

“It’s just the mentality of the players. You’ve got to start quick and it was a poor goal to give away.”

But after a poor start the Exiles boss was pleased with the way his players responded against Barnet.

Darren Jones hit the bar, Sean Rigg headed just wide from a Dan Butler cross, Jack Compton was just off target with a curler from the edge of the area and new loan signing Reece Grego-Cox impressed throughout.

“I thought after that five minutes we looked good,” he said.

“That was more like us. We played with a bit of slickness.

“We started to get a foothold in the game and we controlled the game after the first five minutes.

“I said to the players at half-time ‘keep doing the same things, be patient and you’ll get the right result’ but unfortunately the heavens opened up.”