JIMMY DACK isn’t giving up on the Exiles making the play-offs this term, but admits a goal shortage has likely scuppered their season.

Newport are now three points adrift of the play-offs with two games left and a vastly inferior goal difference on their rivals.

The club released strikers Christian Jolley and Danny Crow just before the departure of previous manager Justin Edinburgh, with a further two strikers, Chris Zebroski and Rene Howe, leaving since then.

And Dack admits the duo of Jolley and Crow would still be at the club, if Newport had possessed a crystal ball.

“To be fair, had we have known the situations that would surface with Chris Zebroski (sacked after receiving a prison sentence) and Rene Howe (released for compassionate reasons due to his wife being sick) you’d have probably looked at the situations with Christian Jolley and Danny Crow,” he said.

“We probably don’t release those two if we had known what was around the corner.

“And then with the transfer window, that didn’t help, not getting the loan striker and that was another key element for us. You can’t keep relying on Aaron O’Connor to score the goals, as we have done all season.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing, we can all look back now, but at the time releasing those strikers was the right thing to do.”

Dack admits County simply have to get fighting and believing they can still make the top seven, until it is impossible.

“We are still three points out of being in the play-offs, but it’s not mathematically over,” he said. “We have to fight on.

“Are we in form going into the play-offs? No. The results will tell you that.

“Are we giving as much effort as we possibly can? Yes.

“The players are trying, they are fighting, the league table doesn’t lie, but as a club we’ve progressed again and we aren’t going to give up, no way.

“You can’t give up. We win the next two games and results go our way and suddenly we are in it (the play-offs).

“It makes it harder, because we aren’t in form, but we won’t give up, no-way in a million years. Not while it is mathematically possible.”

Dack believes there are numerous reasons as to why the club have fallen from the top seven.

“There is a bit of everything in why we’ve fallen away,” he said.

The club wouldn’t turn down League One, because it gives you better funding and a better chance to grow, but have we pushed everything to the boundaries? Yes we have.

“I was devastated to lose Saturday, but it wasn’t for the want of trying, we dominated for 70 minutes and it is about taking your chances, which again we didn’t do.

“Their goalkeeper gets credit for some super saves, but not taking chances, failing to capitalise when we are on top, that is why we aren’t in the play-offs.

“I never question the desire of these players, but the league table doesn’t lie and you finish off where you should be... and maybe we are just lacking that little extra quality we needed.”