Newport battled back to 29-24 and came close to scoring in the dying seconds but they did not help themselves when forwards Joe Bearman and Andrew Hall were both shown the yellow card in the first half, both times for preventing release.

But they did score four tries - as did Newcastle - to pick up two bonus points, the second one for losing by less than seven points.

"You have to say we left too much on the table in the first half and got punished for it," said Newport head coach Paul Turner.

"We got back into a winning position but made too many errors.

"We did prove today we can play a bit, but you cannot give a quality player like Toby Flood that sort of room and we had two guys in the sin bin and you can't do that.

"It's tough, the game was right in the balance and I'm disappointed - we will have to look at the video regarding the yellow cards before making any comment.

"We made mistakes and that puts us on the back foot and I was furious at half-time, but it's very difficult being a referee.

"We're pleased we did contribute to very good game and I'm sure the crowd enjoyed it.

"There were a lot of good things about tonight but you cannot afford to make those sort of errors against a side like Newcastle."