FORMER Newport County AFC midfielder Ben Tozer says jeers from the home fans helped inspire him to score a late equaliser for Cheltenham Town at Rodney Parade on Wednesday.

Tozer was repeatedly taunted by fans in the Rodney Road Stand when County led 1-0 but he had the last laugh as he rescued a point for the visitors in the 86th minute.

And, speaking to BBC Radio Gloucestershire after the match, he admitted that the stick he received played a part.

“I thrive off that sort of stuff,” said the 29-year-old.

“It gets your head in the game a lot more and you obviously feel like you’ve got a point to prove, in a way.

“I love it. It almost makes me play better. So, bring it on.”

Tozer, who made 76 appearances for the Exiles between 2016 and 2018 (below), felt the Robins deserved the equaliser and could even have gone on to take all three points instead of one.

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“It’s a shame the game didn’t go on for another five or 10 minutes because we were smelling blood a little bit,” he said.

“They were always going to be dangerous on the counter-attack but we’re a fit bunch and we [felt we] could run all over them in the last five minutes.

"It’s a shame we ran out of time, really.

“Looking at the game as a whole, we didn’t create loads. But we were unlucky not to score in the first half with a little deflection and, on the whole, I feel like we were the ones trying to take the game to them.”

Tozer has been playing mostly in defence for Cheltenham but he was happy to be back in midfield at Rodney Parade.

“I knew what they would be about, having been here and played in central midfield for them,” he added.

“It was always basically going to be a scrap and whenever you get the ball [my job was to] try and have that little bit of quality and a calm head to pick a pass rather than just lumping it every time.”

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