TERRY Butcher is convinced that once his experienced players return from injury his Newport County AFC side will find the cutting edge they are missing.

The Exiles boss was left frustrated after watching his new-look team, featuring three teenagers in the starting XI and another six on the bench, fail to make pressure pay at Hartlepool on Tuesday night.

County were beaten 1-0 - a third defeat in four games this season - to remain on one point in League Two but Butcher says the best is yet to come

“It’s really irritating and frustrating because they put so much into it again and we’ve matched a really good team who are confident and winning well,” he said.

“It’s just that little bit of extra quality in the final third wasn’t there.

“We matched them, we battled hard and the work rate was spot on.

“It was just that the decisions in the final third were poor.

“We didn’t have that extra bit of quality when it really mattered.

“We can say that we’ve matched a good team away from home who are playing well and top of the league but it still hurts because we haven’t got what we came for and certainly what we felt we deserved for the first half display.

“It is small margins but it hurts like hell when you’re on the wrong side of it.”

Butcher is currently without Matt Taylor (ankle), Kevin Feely (thigh), Andrew Hughes (knee), Nathan Ralph (hamstring), Alex Rodman (calf) and Lenell John-Lewis (hamstring).

“We need experience all over the pitch,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of players to come back in and it’s going to be a bit of time before they do come back in unfortunately. So we’ll just have to plough on.

“We have a good core of experienced players to come back in and the best is yet to come from us.

“With those experienced heads we probably would make sure we turned the screw and got the goals we deserved at times.

“We can take great heart from how we played and matched the opposition but we’ve got to have that cutting edge.

“We had the cutting edge against Stevenage but we just didn’t bring it with us on the bus.

"If we can get back to that then I’m sure we will score goals."

Butcher may not have any of his injured players back to face early season pacesetters Leyton Orient but he remains hopeful that he will be able to add more experience to the team before then.

“We are working hard and we’re confident that we’ll have somebody else in by Saturday to boost the ranks,” he said.