MANAGER Justin Edinburgh praised his players' character after Newport County AFC fought back from a goal down to draw at Scunthorpe United today.

The hosts were ahead after just 61 seconds when Sam Winnall headed past Lenny Pidgeley from a yard out but Andrew Hughes' second half leveller earned the Exiles another away point in League Two.

And Edinburgh, who also revealed that striker Christian Jolley requires an operation on his groin injury, was pleased with a point.

"I think it was a fair result after a poor start from us. It’s very unlike us to start like that," said the Exiles boss.

"We wanted to keep them quiet for 20 to 25 minutes and then work our way into the game and maybe the crowd would have turned a little bit but that gameplan went out of the window after the first few minutes.

"We lost our discipline a bit early on and we were chasing the game. We couldn’t find our legs and we certainly couldn’t find each other with the ball.

"That was really disappointing and unlike us but what is like us is the endeavour, the work-rate and the effort we showed in the second half.

"We changed formation in the second half and it worked because we put them on the back foot a bit more.

We might have been able to nick it in the end but on reflection a point was a fair result.

"We’ve given another good account of ourselves and continued the momentum," he added.

"We’ve got keep that going because it can disappear as quickly as it appeared and we need to keep the points coming."

On Jolley, who was replaced at half-time by Conor Washington, Edinburgh said: "Christian is doing an unselfish job for us at the moment.

"He needs an operation on his groin and he’s putting his teammates and the club first and he’s going to try and play through it until we get Aaron O’Connor back.

"Aaron should be back in two to three weeks and then Christian will be able to have an operation but until then we’ve just got to try and nurse him through it.

"Once he has the operation we’d expect him to be out for 14 to 21 days.

"Adam Chapman came off as well but he was just looking a bit fatigued," he added. "He’s played a lot of games lately and he will be fine to face Mansfield on Saturday.

"We are down to the bare bones at the moment but we have Mike Flynn, Tony James and Ismail Yakubu coming back and (new signing) Ryan Burge to come in as well.

"I would think Andy Sandell would be back too but I thought Ryan Jackson was outstanding and there is real good competition when everyone is fit."