NEWPORT County AFC defender Andrew Hughes felt the players let their standards slip in Saturday’s bad tempered draw with Mansfield Town.

The 21-year-old was the sponsors’ man of the match in the 1-1 draw at Rodney Parade but he admitted that the whole team was disappointed by their display.

And he disagreed with manager Justin Edinburgh over the red card shown to Exiles teammate Lee Minshull for an elbow on Martin Riley.

“It was disappointing for us. We should have got three points,” said Hughes. “We weren’t at the races and we are disappointed with the way we played.

“We can’t argue the red card, it was a blatant elbow, and we were down to ten men as well,” he added.

“Mins is an aggressive player but I don’t know if their player said something to him.”

Stags striker Matt Rhead was also sent off for two yellow cards after Sam Clucas had cancelled out Chris Zebroski’s first half opener for the hosts.

“Their red evened up the game but I think we just needed to get the ball down a bit more and slow down the game. We couldn’t do that,” said centre-back Hughes.

“Chris is on fire for us at the moment and hopefully he can keep the goals coming but the goal we conceded was from a set-piece and we didn’t defend it well enough.”

County have another home game against Morcambe next up and Hughes says they’ll be going all out for the win in that one.

“It’s massive for us now,” he added. “We need to take three points from that game and get back to winning ways.”

Edinburgh’s view on the Minshull red card differed from Hughes’ and he defended the midfielder.

“I didn’t have a great view of it but I know 100 per cent that it wouldn’t have been intentional from Lee,” said the Exiles boss.

“It was a heated game and we got caught up in that. There wasn’t a lot of football played out there.

“It was probably a fair result but I didn’t think we were brave enough or good enough in possession of the ball and I think that’s the worst we’ve played for a long period of time.”

Minshull will be suspended for the next three games, at home to Morcambe, away to Exeter City and at home to Torquay United.