Swindon’s penultimate pre-season friendly saw them fall to a 4-0 defeat to Oxford United.
Despite the U's being a league above Town in FA Women’s National League South, it was a very even opening few minutes.
However, it was Oxford who managed to break the deadlock; Daisy McLachlan brought down a high ball and crossed it to Zoe Barrett, who sent the first goal into the bottom of the net in the 12th minute.
The away side doubled their advantage at the beginning of the second half when McLachlan half-volleyed the ball into the back of the net past the Town’s Trialist goalkeeper.
Then, once again from long-range, McLachlan got her brace by scoring the U's third from the edge of the box with enough power to catch out the goalkeeper.
The fourth was put away late in the game by an Oxford United Trialist who struck the ball well from just inside the penalty area, giving recently subbed on Emily Mcgrogan absolutely no chance to save it.
Post-game, Manager Mike Cook shared his thoughts: “They were deserving winners but it’s frustrating that it was four individual mistakes, four goals.
"We certainly don’t want to be going into the season like that."
Having clear mixed emotions and looking at the bigger picture of pre-season, he continued:
“We’ve got a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old within our side so they'll learn and so I think we’ve all got to be a little bit patient with them.”
“There’s a lot of positives really, I thought first-half, we were excellent in not having the ball and then nicking it and the counter-attack, that was really good.”
Talking about what needs work while looking ahead to next week, he said: “Forest Green will be probably similar from our side of things, but hopefully we’ll have a little bit more of the ball so that’ll be the things we’re working on in training.”
“We haven’t got to get frustrated because it is going to take a little bit of time for us to walk before we can run.”
The score-line did not reflect the effort Town put into the game, but it is important to analyse and look forward to this weekend’s friendly against Forest Green Rovers at Foundation Park.
