Swindon Town

SWINDON TOWN lost by two goals to one in the friendly against Championship side Leeds United at the County Ground, writes Adrian Smith.

The sides had been level at halftime after Michael Smith had equalised following Steven Morison’s goal but Rudy Austin’s penalty early in the second half was enough to give victory to Dave Hockaday’s team.       

It was the visitors who had the best of the early play restricting the Robins to a solitary attack by Nathan Byrne in the opening ten minutes.

Luke Murphy drew a fine save from Wes Foderingham when he parried a powerful goalbound shot and moments later Stephen Warnock fired just over the bar in the 11th minute.

Leeds  did open the scoring less than a minute later when Doukara outpaced the home defence to square the ball for Steven Morison to sidefoot home from close range.

Doukara should have doubled his side’s lead in the 21st minute when he outpaced the Town defence and raced towards goal before sidefooting against the post with Foderingham beaten.

Nathan Byrne had Town’s first shot of the night in the 24th minute when he unleashed a curling effort from the edge of the penalty area which Leeds keeper Stuart Taylor took down to his left. Two minutes later Nathan Thompson latched onto a high ball from Luongo only to head wide of goal with the keeper stranded.

The Robins equalised in the 31st minute from a corner awarded when a shot by  Louis Thompson was deflected behind  and when  the ball was crossed, it was headed back across goal by Lelan for Michael Smith to volley home from close range to level the scores.

Massimo Luongo carved out a chance for himself in the 36th minute after teasing his way into the penalty area and almost caught the keeper unawares  firing in a shot at the near post but Taylor in the Leeds goal just managed to grab the ball.

Leeds wasted a good chance in the 44th minute after a mix up on the edge of the penalty area presented Doukara with a  chance from close range but his effort was deflected for a corner which was cleared and that was the last main action of the half.

There was early drama in the second half when Foderingham impeded Doukara just inside the penalty area when he was through on goal and the referee awarded a penalty. Up stepped Rudy Austin to send a powerful shot to the right of Foderingham to put United back in front to delight the 961 Leeds fans in the crowd of 3769.

Leeds continued to press for a third goal restricting Mark Cooper’s side to occasional breakaways  and eventually Andy Williams was replaced by George Barker in the 62nd minute.

Barker was soon involved in the action and was fouled leading to a free kick but that was cleared by the visitors.

Louis Thompson was replaced in the 68th minute by Anton Rodgers and Yaser Kasim was replaced by Ben Gladwin at the same time.

Michael Smith left the field in the 80th minute to be replaced by Connor Waldon and the Town goalscorer received good applause for his efforts.  Leeds introduced Lewis Cook in place of Tomasso Bianchi during the break in play.

The game was being played at a slow pace with much of the play concentrated in midfield.

Massimo Luongo was replaced by Will Randall and Leeds introduced Matt Smith in place of Doukara in the 88th minute as the spate of substitutions continued.

Town went close to equalising in the two minutes of added time when Nathan Thompson latched onto a deflected shot but his looping header was gathered by Taylor and that was the last action of this friendly encounter.