AFTER a frustrating night at Rodney Parade in midweek, Mickey Demetriou is hoping Newport County AFC can keep their excellent away form going at Forest Green Rovers tomorrow.

County battled back from 2-0 down to claim a point against League Two’s bottom club Macclesfield Town on Tuesday.

Demetriou praised the team’s character but the 3-3 draw was a disappointment, especially after the Exiles recorded excellent wins on the road at Port Vale, Oldham Athletic and Tranmere Rovers last month.

And the stand-in skipper is targeting another assured away performance at The New Lawn this weekend in front of what should be a large travelling contingent in the stands.

“We won 4-0 there last year and it would be nice to get a clean sheet again,” said Demetriou. “We’ll be trying our best to hopefully get a win for the fans.

“It’s not too far away so hopefully a few come and support us because that is massive for us away from home.

“The fans were brilliant at Tranmere, Oldham and Port Vale and we’ll try to put on a performance for them again.”

That would make up for the disappointment against the Silkmen but Demetriou knows that County must avoid repeating the disastrous start they made on Tuesday and at home to Cambridge United last Saturday.

“I feel like it’s two points dropped,” said the 28-year-old centre-back as he reflected on the draw with Macclesfield.

“We dug deep again and showed the character to come back to take a point but we have to stop giving teams head starts.

“We’ve given them two early goals and we came back again but I think the game could have been completely different.

“We’ve got a great team spirit in the dressing room and we’ve got great coaching staff who will tell us what to do when we need to do it,” added Demetriou, who has converted penalties in his last two games.

“Hopefully we do it at the start of games and we don’t give too many 2-0 starts to teams.

“We need to go back to the training ground and see what went wrong and we’ll go again on Saturday.”

Asked to explain the slow starts, he said: “That’s the million dollar question. If we knew what it was then we wouldn’t be doing it.

“We’re trying our hardest not to do it and we’re working hard in training and looking at why it’s happening but at the moment we can’t put our finger on it and how to change it.

“We’re going away from home and doing what we should probably be doing at home.

“But we’re picking up results. That’s the most important thing.

“Lincoln lost [at Tranmere on Tuesday] so we’ve made up some ground on them but it’s a missed chance to go joint top and we’ll look to do that on Saturday.”

County are currently third in the table – two points behind leaders Lincoln City.

Forest Green are four points back in fifth place but they have yet to lose in 11 league games so far this season – winning four and drawing seven.