Swindon boss Scott Lindsey was full of praise for his illness-stricken players after they beat Barrow 1-0 to go fourth in League Two.
The depleted Robins were gifted an early penalty after Tyrell Warren’s poor back pass left goalkeeper Paul Farman with little choice but to bring down Jacob Wakeling.
Louis Reed duly stepped up and buried his first goal of the season and the visitors saw out a battling victory on a rain-soaked afternoon at Holker Street.
The Barrow ground staff and volunteers worked wonders and referee Robert Lewis deemed the pitch playable at 12.30pm following a second inspection with the match one of only two played in the fourth tier.
“I’m really pleased given the circumstances, we’ve got a lot of people missing with a lot of illness in the camp,” revealed Lindsey.
“Ronan Darcy was really poorly and hardly trained this week, Ricky Aguiar was really poorly at the hotel so we left him on the bench.
“We’ve got Cian Harries, Ciaran Brennan, Tom Clayton, Matty Baudry, Ben Gladwin, Saidou Khan and Luke Jephcott all missing and that’s seven players I’ve just named there who are normal starters or have been involved in a lot of the games.
“I’m really proud of the players today because it was a hard game and a tough place to come. I thought we were outstanding.
“Ciaran has gone down with illness, he’s not been in at all all week. He’s still felt feverish late Thursday night so we decided not to take him.
“They had to dig deep and be resilient and I’m proud of them. I felt that we came under a lot of pressure with balls into our box and the boys defended very well.”
Farman produced a string of fine saves to keep the hosts in the game.
But the Bluebirds failed to make it count with their rare glimpses at goal down the other end.
Boss Pete Wild bemoaned his side’s “sluggish start” after a 15-day break as his side slipped to sixth.
He said: “We started sluggishly which was frustrating. I don’t think we got to grips with the pitch as well as they did.
“We know how we want to try and play and how we want to start at home and that’s highly frustrating.
“It’s not a great pass back for the penalty and the pitch does Farms with a touch and it’s a pen. I have no qualms about it.
“It’s a culmination of things that doesn’t give us the greatest start, it puts us on the back foot and then we’re fighting to get that equaliser.
“We looked a bit rusty, didn’t we? That’s not like us. I thought we looked rusty and looked half a yard off it.
“Maybe the ‘is it on? Is it off?’ with the pitch doesn’t help that, but that’s not an excuse. We just didn’t start well.
“What disappoints me the most is we haven’t been able to kickstart December.”
