Opposition view: Wellens baffled by decision to disallow late leveller as he claims Swindon should have scored 'seven or eight' against Cobblers

Swindon Town manager Richie Wellens was baffled by the decision to disallow Joel Grant's injury-time equaliser during their 2-1 defeat to the Cobblers on Tuesday.

The Robins were slow out of the blocks at the PTS and found themselves 2-0 down inside half-an-hour following first Cobblers goals for Christopher Missilou and Danny Rose.

From then on, it was largely one-way traffic in Swindon's favour and they almost salvaged something from the game following Tyler Smith's 76th penalty, but Grant was penalised for a foul on Jonathan Mitchell in stoppage-time.

"In the second-half there was only one team in it and we should have come away with a point," said Wellens.

"I said I won't speak about referees but Jonny Smith had a shot, the goalkeeper fumbles it, we score from the rebound and the referee gives a free-kick. Even their second goal, it was a foul in the build-up. The ref doesn't give it, they run up the pitch and score."

Wellens also claimed his side were 'by far' the better team after their poor start to the game and could have scored as many as eight goals.

"In the first 15 minutes, we were slow, we were lethargic, we didn't compete, we gave away too many free-kicks and we felt sorry for ourselves," added Wellens.

"The amount of times I told them not to give cheap free-kicks away in the last 48 hours but we just continued to do that and they were able to disrupt the game and put it in the box.

"But after that I thought we were by far the better team. They defended their box really well but we missed chances and then every time they booted it forward, we let it bounce in our box.

"The way they play, they go long, they hope for second balls and they break the game up and that gives them something to hold onto, but to be honest we should have scored seven or eight tonight.

"We didn't hit the target with one-on-ones and when we did it was straight at the goalkeeper. We looked in a rush to get our shots off.

"We should have had six or seven, I really believe that. Even in the first half-hour when we I didn't think we played well, we still countered them and could have scored a few goals.

"We were brilliant tonight - brilliant - in the middle of the pitch but inside their box we didn't take our chances and then we let too many balls bounce in our box and it bounces very high on this pitch. But we should have scored five or six."