HEAD coach Jody Morris apologised to Swindon Town fans after his side’s 4-2 defeat to Mansfield Town on Good Friday and said there were times when some of his players looked like they were “ready to roll over.”

Rushian Hepburn-Murphy headed the Robins in front on home soil, but first-half replies from Stephen Quinn, Lucas Akins, and Rhys Oates saw the Swindon players booed off at the break.

Substitute Hiram Boateng added to the home fans’ anguish with a lovely long-range finish midway through the second half, prior to a late consolation from fellow replacement Jonny Williams five minutes from time.

Post-match, Swindon’s boss was fuming with his players’ showing in the first 45 and admitted he could have taken most off – such was his disgust.

Morris said: “That was not good enough. If I was a fan in the stadium, I’d absolutely be sharing their frustration.

“I think the level of performance – particularly in the first half – is not good enough. There are ways in which you can lose games, but today, there were none of the things that have gone against us recently from a luck aspect.

“I felt there were times in the first half where it looked like we were ready to roll over. That’s not good for anybody. The fans have paid money to come and see that.

“As I said, there are ways in which you can lose games and that wasn’t good enough. I let that be known at half-time, but I also felt that I could have changed most players.

“The only player, for me, to come out with any sort of credit was Rush [Hepburn-Murphy]. The shift that he put in, and the little bits of quality we produced came from him.”

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Defeat for Swindon pushed the club’s winless run to seven games and leaves them 13 points from both the play-offs and the relegation zone with a septet of fixtures still to complete.

Morris acknowledged the manner of the performance against Mansfield made it the worst defeat of his tenure so far.

He said: “The fans who came in today, I can only apologise. The sooner we can give them something to shout about, the better we’ll be because they’ve obviously been waiting a while with the run we’ve been on.

“That was a little bit different today, though, with the level of performance. It looked like they [the players] weren’t as bothered as we should have been about being behind at this stadium in front of our fans – and that’s unacceptable.”