SIX games into his reign and with six games to go until the end of the season, Michael Flynn says he’s enjoying the pressure of trying to save his hometown club from relegation.

Flynn was placed in caretaker charge of Newport County AFC until the conclusion of the campaign after replacing Graham Westley last month.

The Exiles were then 11 points from safety but three wins and a draw have cut the gap to five points ahead of tomorrow’s visit to play-off contenders Exeter City.

“I think it helped a little bit when I took over that there was kind of no pressure,” said Flynn.

“We were 11 points adrift, it was backs-to-the-wall and if we got out of it was going to take a miracle.

“I’m an honest guy and that maybe lightened the load a little bit but I put my own pressure on myself.

“It would have been easy for us to maybe go out with a whimper but the boys have been fantastic in the way they’ve responded every day in training and the buzz around the place.

“You’ve only got to see the effort in the games. OK we might fall short at times – that’s where we’re at at the moment.

“But their effort has been fantastic and that’s helped me because – I hate saying this, but – even when we have lost we’ve lost in the right way.”

He added: “We’ve not given up, we’ve not downed tools, we’ve fought to the end and we should have got more points than we have.

“But we’ve got 10 out of 18 and I would have taken that before I took over.”

Flynn insists his players still believe they can stay up.

“Our performances have raised expectation and belief and that’s credit to the boys,” he said.

“They’re quietly confident, they know what they’ve got to do and we’ve just got to make sure they don’t take their foot off the gas or switch off because we’ve still got a huge job to do.”