MICKEY Demetriou insists Newport County AFC are good enough to earn automatic promotion from League Two – if they can eradicate mistakes from their game and be more consistent.

The defender, who bagged his seventh goal of the campaign in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat of Cambridge United, is hopeful for the future and already looking forward to a promotion push next term.

With two matches of the season left, ninth place is now the highest County can finish in the table, frustratingly just outside the play-offs.

But Demetriou reckons that as long as the Exiles are able to sort out their inconsistency – they won one league game in 11 following the FA Cup draw with Spurs – League One may not be far away.

“We can definitely push on next year, we just need to find that consistency,” he said.

“If you look at it, we’ve beaten the teams above us and lost to the teams below us, so if we can get that out of our game we can push on and get into the play-offs, if not automatic.”

He added: “It’s all about consistency, we’re human, we make mistakes, and we wouldn’t be in this league if we didn’t make mistakes. That’s the difference between us and the top leagues, players make mistakes and if they do they’re costly.

“If we look back at the season, we’ve had a really good one.

“A couple of performances could have been better and that would have taken us closer to the play-offs where we probably deserve to be.

“We’ve got two more games to finish as high as we can in the table.

“We have personal pride to play for now, but it’s frustrating because if we take six points from the next two games we’ll be just below the play-offs and a few more results would have taken us into them.

“It’s been a good season though with the FA Cup run, but we’ll regroup and go again.

“It was nice to win our final game of the season in front of the fans, they deserved the three points because they’ve been quality all season.”

Demetriou came in for some rough treatment from the likes of Uche Ikpeazu and Barry Corr at Rodney Parade on Saturday.

But he says there is no way a few bumps and bruises are going to keep him out of the trips to Chesterfield tonight (kick-off 7.45pm) and Carlisle United on Saturday.

“I’ve got a headache but that’s part and parcel of being a defender, said the 28-year-old after the Cambridge victory. “I’m sure they were accidental, but if they weren’t then it’s different.

“That stamp in the first half was bad but he went off and Corr came on and booted me in the face, pleading he didn’t touch me, but he did.

“I’m not someone who will go down if I don’t get caught. I won’t hold any grudges. I’ll be okay for Tuesday, I haven’t missed a game all year and I don’t plan to now.”