Ben Garner urges Swindon to ‘keep believing, keep pushing’ in bid for promotion

Posted Sunday, April 10, 2022 by PA

Ben Garner insists the Sky Bet League Two play-off race is not over yet after with Newport nicked a 1-0 win at Swindon courtesy of a Dion Conroy own goal.

The Exiles had only registered one shot on goal over 90 minutes but scored late as the Swindon captain bundled a cross into his net.

Robins boss Garner said: “It’s not like we aren’t creating or aren’t looking like scoring, we’ve just not taken our chances and we have also had some bad luck in front of goal with things bobbling here or there or just missing by an inch or so.

“Goalkeepers have made good saves. It was a really good save from Joe Day to stop Jonny Williams in the first half and Rochdale’s goalkeeper was man of the match last week.

“I thought we had a penalty in the first half. It looked a penalty to me on Louie Barry but we don’t tend to get penalties so I have given up on that.

“It’s fine margins and all we can do is keep working. Before today only Forest Green had scored more goals than us.

“We have to keep believing, keep pushing, and if one had gone in in the first half then I think we would have got several.”

A chance-laden first half for the hosts saw Swindon dominate possession, but Jack Payne, Barry and Louis Reed all wasted opportunities in front of goal.

Both sides started the afternoon just outside the play-off places and this was a game that promised attacking football, even if Newport did struggle to make the most of their attackers in the game.

Newport manager James Rowberry said: “At times, we could have done a little bit better today. I understand that. But in general, I was pleased with the performance.

“That wind was really, really strong in the first half and you see when we were trying to get out it was really hard and then second off it’s quite similar to them. It was a game of two halves in many ways.

“I spoke to the lads inside about how it had been a collective and about all of us doing it together.

“It’s about the 26 of us and the staff and the football club and the fans and everybody so there’s a real good feel to the place at the minute.

“We’ve got five games to go and now we’ve got to go again. We’ll go down to the wire but we try to focus on our process performance to get our results right.”