Wellens: We failed to react to Conroy injury

RICHIE WELLENS explained that his player's failure to react quick enough to the injury of club Captain Dion Conroy allowed Michael Flynn's Newport County to get a stranglehold on the match as Swindon Town suffered their third home defeat of the season yesterday. Total Sport Swindon's Ryan Walker spoke to Wellens following the result.

An awful start to proceedings saw Swindon Town Captain substituted through injury after coming off worse in a 50/50 challenge with Newport’s Joss Labadie. Speaking after the game, Wellens explained how his captain's injury affected the mentality of the Town players before revealing that tentatively explaining the extent of Conroy injury,

“The difference was that it was a horrendous start to the game in terms of what happened to Dion Conroy,” said Wellens. 

“And for the next ten minutes we let it affect us and at times it felt like we were down to ten men because of the nature of what had happened. 

“We resorted to playing the way Newport do and we knew the only way they would probably score against us what at set plays.

“The wind played a factor, but we’ve still got to track runner and I thought the second half we were excellent,” he added. 

“If Isgrove’s chance had gone in then I think we go on and win the game but all round it’s been a bad day for us. 

"Our thoughts are with Dion and it doesn’t look good. We hope he’ll be ok but it’s a bad one. 

“We don’t know what it is yet and we need to find out what it is,” said Wellens.

The injury to club skipper saw Anthony Grant moved back into defence as Adam May was introduced into the game. However, with two central defenders on the bench in both Tom Broadbent and Taylor Curran, there was much to be said for Wellens choice of substitution. 

However, the manager explained that Broadbent’s confidence issues lay at the heart of the decision. 

“I didn’t want to lose Grant from midfield but we feel Tom [Broadbent] is low on confidence at the minute,” stated Wellens. 

“It was a natural balance moving Grant to centre-back. If we had put Tom on then we’d have two left-footers at centre-back.

“This game was a little bit too early for Taylor Curran, we want to try and get him minutes, he’ll be a good player, but he’s only 18.

“It's very early to throw an 18-year-old into that environment against the wind, dealing with long balls, and up against a team like Newport who are relentless with the long balls.

“We lost the game because we didn’t defend a set-play and we let a horrendous situation affect us,” said Wellens. 

“When he does get a chance he needs to take it with both hands.

“We would like to get him more minutes in a practice environment and rebuild his confidence. 

“Confidence affects all players but if he works hard in training then hopefully he’ll come out on the other side,” added Wellens. 

A difficult game against Michael Flynn’s Newport saw Swindon struggle with the physicality of the match as long balls into the Town half caused havoc amongst the defensive ranks. 

However, Wellens doesn’t see things this way and instead blamed his sides inability to pick up second balls as was one of the main problems. 

“Did they out physical us today? They scored from one set-play,” said Wellens.

“They won a lot of balls in the first half but that was because we were playing too long.

“Therefore when we go long we aren’t in the right positions to pick up second balls.

“In the second half we started playing to our strengths and did any physicality come into it? Absolutely not.

“We need to make sure every time we step on the pitch we do what we’re good at,” added Wellens.