Swindon Town

Swindon Town Head Coach Luke Williams will tell his players to embrace the occasion ahead of Saturday’s clash against local rivals Bristol Rovers but will also stress the importance of keeping calm.

The Robins will welcome the League One newcomers to the County Ground tomorrow afternoon (1.30pm kick-off) – the first time that the two sides will have met since 2012.

Town are full of confidence having recorded a 1-0 victory over Port Vale last time out, whilst they have collected seven points from their opening four league fixtures this term.

A bumper crowd is expected at SN1 for tomorrow’s West Country Derby and cool heads will be the order of the day for the Town Head Coach.

“We’ll try and make the players aware that the atmosphere might be different to the norm but at the same time we don’t want to make the players lose concentration and make them over-hyped where they are vulnerable to making a mistake or getting carried away,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk.

“It is always about balances to make sure we prepare them so that they know what to expect but also to try and prepare them to not fall into a trap.

“We don’t see the Stratton Bank full very often so it is something that the players have to be aware of. We need to make them aware of that but they will enjoy it."

“We have missed the derbies – massively so. I can’t say I enjoyed playing away at Oxford last season, it was a very tough night, but it was still exciting and the build-up to the game was fantastic.

“We could see how much it meant to both sets of supporters and we have really missed it.”

Williams is expecting the toughest of tests from a side who have earned back-to-back promotions over the course of the last two campaigns.

“It (successive promotions) is an incredible achievement and watching the team I can see how organised they are and how well they’ve been set-up and coached,” he added.

“The team seem to know their jobs very clearly so I expect it to be very tough, I expect it to be very difficult for us to score against them and I expect us to be required to concentrate for 90 minutes to keep them out."