Forest Green interim head coach Jimmy Ball says Rovers' play-off tie with Newport County is far from over.

Rovers suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat at Rodney Parade in the first leg of the League Two play-off semi-finals on Tuesday evening.

As the home side welcomed supporters back for the first time in over a year, the Amber Army fans were treated to an excellent display from their side.

Matty Dolan’s thunderous long-range strike and a nonchalant scooped effort from Lewis Collins mean that Forest Green trail by two at the half-way mark in the tie.

Despite this, interim Forest Green head coach Jimmy Ball remains defiant ahead of the second leg at the innocent New Lawn on Sunday.

He said: “There’s a lot of football to be played, two-nil is not a comfortable place to be by any means.

“We’re ok with being the underdog, I’m ok with having to fight for what we want and so are the boys. This is far from over.”

The 900-or-so Newport fans made themselves heard during the match and visibly spurred their side on at times during the contest, Ball is hopeful that the Rovers fans can help do the same for the return leg.

“We’ll have fans in and hopefully our fans will have as big an influence as the home fans did tonight and we can give them something to really get behind us,” he added. “If we do, they’ll be in for a right game because like I say, we’re not very happy.”

There was a silver-lining to the defeat as Jamille Matt, Dan Sweeney and Nicky Cadden all made their much anticipated return to the squad.

Since picking up his hand injury in March, it was believed that Matt would be out for the rest of the season but Ball admitted that the striker could feature more for the second leg.

He said: “Jamma is a warrior and his hand’s fine, there’s no issues there."

Forest Green will play the second leg in front of a limited capacity innocent New Lawn crowd on Sunday evening (kick off 6:30pm).