Richie Wellens praise the guts of his young Swindon side, as they overcame a stern Stevenage side with goals from academy graduates Sol Pryce and Scott Twine.
Pryce became Town’s 1000th league player as he made his debut and was on the scoresheet within 18 seconds, before scoring his second on the stroke of half-time.
His fellow grad, Twine had doubled Swindon’s lead on five minutes, before Scott Cuthbert pulled one back for Boro.
Joel Byrom made things slightly closer than Wellens had hoped with a goal in the latter stages of the game but the Gaffer was pleased with how his side battled.
“Take Matty Taylor out of tonight’s team and you’ve got an average age of 20- 21, and tonight we were up against a solid side who probably had around eight players with a couple of hundred caps to their name.”
“When you look at our players you’ve got Woolfenden in his first season, Twine in his first season, Sol Pryce on his debut, Kyle Knoyle and Ellis Iandolo are both young lads.
“At the moment we’re asking them to do things day in day out that they’re not used to and that’s something we need to improve on.
“For all of our quality, which there was so much of on show tonight, it was great to see and what got us over the line is that guts, determination, and desire to hang onto the win,”
Wellens was pleased with his side’s goalscoring prowess and was impressed with Pryce’s composure for his second goal.
“The most difficult thing in the game is to score goals so if we can make sure our movement and timings are right then we will get a lot of chances.
“If you know that your strikers are going to score goals then it gives your defenders more confidence as well.
“Sol’s second goal was really good because he had loads of time to think about his finish. You see strikers where they just run in a straight line and then can’t get the ball out from under their feet to get a shot on goal.
“What Sol did was run across the keeper to take the defender out of the equation and then lifted over the keeper for a good finish.”