GRAHAM Westley questioned the referee’s decision to send off Joe Day and also laid into his young defenders as his first home match in charge ended in defeat for Newport County AFC.

County were matching League Two leaders Plymouth Argyle before Day was shown a straight red card for hauling down Jordan Slew in the box on 36 minutes.

Graham Carey scored from the spot and, although Jon Parkin levelled with a stunning strike five minutes after the break, the visitors sealed a sixth successive away win in the league.

Carey converted a second penalty after being brought down by Darren Jones following a mistake from Jazzi Barnum-Bobb.

And Slew wrapped up the win with a third on the break 12 minutes from time.

“Over 90 minutes we did a lot of good things, there’s no question,” said Westley.

“There’s a massive turning point in the game and the double jeopardy of the sending off and the penalty is hard to take.

“The issue needs to be clear and it never is. My understanding was if there’s an offence in the penalty area it’s a yellow card and a penalty.

“But it happened and we’re in the mindset of taking responsibility. We had the chance to clear the ball and our clearance was what caused the problem.

“If we cleared the ball properly then we don’t end up in the situation we were in.”

Westley was particularly critical of Barnum-Bobb.

“We showed great character and we got ourselves back into the game but then it was a missed tackle that caused the second goal,” added the Exiles boss.

“We’ve got a lot of young players who have come up through the academy structure and I’m a big critic of the academy system because it teaches attacking play and technique but it doesn’t teach players to defend.

“Too many players don’t value the defensive side of the game. It’s about Jazzi learning to tackle rather than dancing past tackles time after time after time."