WILL Randall was Town's hero against Newport as Town needed spot-kicks to book their place in the next round of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
As the game finished 1-1 in normal time, with Anton Rodgers opening the scoring for Swindon, penalties were needed to separate the two sides.
Mark Cooper handed debuts to Bradley Barry and James Brophy while there were also outings for Tyrell Belford in goal and the likes of Will Randall and Lee Marshall who made their first starts of the season. Tom Smith and Ellis Iandolo were alongside Lawrence Vigouroux in a three-man bench for the visitors.
The earliest opportunity for Town dropped for Randall who found himself with a bit of space to shoot on the edge of the box but he could only fire wide.
With 19 minutes on the clock, Swindon took the lead through Anton Rodgers. A neat passing move ended with Drissa Traore laying the ball off for the advancing Rodgers and, from 20 yards, he curled a superb effort into the top corner via the underside of the crossbar.
Belford was largely untroubled at the other end while Traore forged some space inside the area with a clever drag-back but could only drag his left-footed shot off target.
Early on in the second half, Rodgers saw a free-kick pushed away by the home ‘keeper before some fine work from Kevin Stewart saw him drift past a number of amber-coloured shirts and square for Fabien Robert whose shot was kept out.
With a little under 20 minutes left, the home side drew level when Aaron Collins ran onto a pass and slotted beyond Belford.
Town's three-man was reduced to just one man with both Smith and Iandolo entering the fray in place of Marshall and Kevin Stewart respectively, with the latter hobbling off with an injury.
With the scores level after 90 minutes, the game went straight to penalties. Collins missed the second round of kicks in sudden death and it was left to Randall to step up and send Town into round two.
