JOHN Sheridan admitted he had mixed feelings about Oldham Athletic's hard fought point at Newport County.
The Latics' head coach was proud of the way his players battled for a point, but said there was frustration that it was not more.
Oldham are unbeaten in four since Sheridan returned to take charge of the club, and at Rodney Parade they twice battled back from a goal down.
Latics were reduced to 10 men when Dylan Bahamboula was sent off in the 69th minute, yet they went on to take the lead through Mike Fondop's second of the afternoon.
But it was all square in a six-goal thriller in the end as Mickey Demetriou scored a late equaliser.
Sheridan felt the goal could have been avoided, but he was pleased with an overall performance which takes their recent return to eight points from a possible 12.
"I'm so proud of the players for their effort," said Sheridan.
"I'm disappointed in the silly mistakes and the little things we do to make us vulnerable and their first two goals were a big part down to us doing the easy things poorly. We can prevent the goals and it's a beautiful pitch, we should have played a little bit more football and tried to get our wide players involved or get in wide areas a little bit more than we did.
"But we responded really well coming from behind twice and then with 10 men to go in front.
"I've seen little things why the team's probably down there with the goals we've conceded, but I can't fault their effort. I thought in the second half until the sending off we looked like the team that was going to push on and win the game. The sending off obviously puts us on the back foot, but we got blocks in in the end and defended really well.
"Even the goal, I'm probably being harsh but if we close the ball down for the equaliser... but to come away with something is a big plus for us and I'm so pleased for the players for their efforts. But we've got to cut the little things out because the little things end up being big things, because when we did the little things wrong we ended up conceding goals.
"I don't want to go on too much what we did wrong, to get three all, and to go 3-2 up when we go down to 10 men there's a lot of pride there and you can see it with the supporters. They are supporting us and the team's efforts are giving something back, so while we're all going in the right direction we continue. Eight points from four games, that's promotion material, not that we'll get promotion, but I'm very pleased with their efforts."
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