Phil Brown hails Swindon’s fighting spirit
Posted Sunday, August 05, 2018 by PA
Swindon manager Phil Brown hailed his players’ fighting spirit after they came from behind to snatch a dramatic 3-2 win over newly-promoted Macclesfield.
Summer signing Michael Doughty scored a hat-trick – including two stoppage-time penalties – as the much-fancied Robins edged past last season’s National League champions.
Relieved Brown said: “I don’t think there’s been many games like that, never mind the opening day.
“One of the old managers once said to me, ‘if you can’t be good, be lucky’, and today I thought I was going to be an unlucky manager.
“I must admit, I thought the first-half performance was worthy of two, maybe three goals and the quality of our play was something to be admired.
“I think 70-75% of games don’t end in a win if you go behind, so it was good to have that never-say-die attitude.”
Macclesfield looked on course for a dream return to the Football League after Koby Arthur’s double had given them a 2-1 lead heading into added time.
But Doughty, who had earlier cancelled out Arthur’s opener, drew Swindon level in the sixth minute of stoppage time after Elijah Adebayo had been fouled by Jared Hodgkiss.
There was still time for the midfielder to complete his treble and cap Swindon’s amazing comeback following Arthur’s trip on Adebayo.
Macclesfield manager Mark Yates said: “Any defeat is hard to stomach but especially in circumstances like that.
“We showed great spirit and belief to get ourselves into a winning position against one of the favourites for promotion.
“Obviously we are gutted by what happened at the end but we can take a lot of positives from today.
“We have proved we deserve to be in this division and that we can compete with anyone.”
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