After County’s slim chances of a Great Escape this season were effectively ended at Swindon on Tuesday, boss Gary Ablett revealed that he had taken the approach of locking his side in the dressing room for an hour after the match.
A decent start to the second-half after County were given hope through Greg Tansey’s free-kick was undone by the defence switching off and conceding two goals within the space of four minutes.
Simon Ferry and Billy Paynter added the two strikes to give Swindon a handsome 4-1 win and probably a bit of a flattering scoreline after the hard work done by The Hatters, but Ablett let his players know how much they ‘had let themselves down.’
He said: ‘We looked as if we’d given up and accepted the consequences of the division we are in. The players have to stand up and take responsibility.’
‘I thought we could come here and put our best foot forward and match them but we only competed for 10 minutes in the second half and the other 35 was as dire as the first 45 minutes.’
Swindon boss Danny Wilson was understandably thrilled after his side consolidated their play-off place with the thumping win, though he realised that his team had ‘been in a fight’ up against us.
The ex-Hartlepool boss said: ‘It was a good start for us with Wardy getting the goal early on but they dug in and defended well and made it difficult for us.’
‘Looking at the whole 90 minutes it was a comprehensive victory and I think the amount of efforts we’ve had and possession we had show that. We deserved 4-1 even though we had to work hard for it.’
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