Harrogate Town 1 Swindon Town 4: ‘I don’t want to knock the lads while they are down’

The Sulphurites were completely outclassed by their promotion-chasing visitors and could have had absolutely no complaints had they lost Saturday’s League Two clash by a greater margin.

And although they were without the services of seven players and lost two more to injury during the game, the body language and performances of the majority of those who did take the field in yellow and black left plenty to be desired.

Boss Simon Weaver did however choose to defend his charges, saying: “After a defeat like this I don’t want to be ultra critical and knock the lads while they are down.

“I think you’ll find that’s confidence in sport and it is a test of the mentality when we’re playing at the highest level we’ve ever been at, we’ve got eight or nine injured and had a really hard second half of the season.

“We were down to the bare bones and you can’t just roll up and go toe-to-toe with a team of Swindon’s quality when you have that many players missing.”

Louie Barry netted twice in seven first-half minutes to put the Robins in control before Josh Davison’s second-half brace took the away advantage to four.

Luke Armstrong struck in stoppage-time to reduce the deficit, though there was to be no escaping what was Harrogate’s seventh defeat in their last nine League Two matches.

Harrogate Town: Cracknell, Fallowfield (McArdle 56), Smith, Sheron, Burrell, Muldoon, Thomson, Pattison (Austerfield 46), Diamond, Beck (Power 67), Armstrong. Unused substitutes: Ilesanmi,O’Boyle,Giles.

Swindon Town: Wollacott, Hunt, Baudry, Conroy, Tomlinson (Gladwin 67), Payne, Reed, Iandolo, Egbo (Williams 61), Davison, Barry (Parsons 75). Unused substitutes: Odimayo, Ward, O’Brien, Aguiar.

Referee: Scott Oldham (Lancashire).