SWINDON Town head coach Jody Morris admitted his side “lacked a bit of punch” during their 1-0 defeat to Tranmere Rovers on Easter Monday.

Town dominated possession and generated the lion’s share of notable chances at Prenton Park but lost out as Harvey Saunders’ close-range finish midway through the first half ensured the points stayed on the Wirral.

While Swindon were certainly more energetic and careful in possession than against Mansfield Town on Good Friday, Morris’ men failed to take sufficient risk to try and open up a Tranmere side who rivalled the Robins for lack of confidence.

The Town boss acknowledged this in his post-match interview and suggested the players should have made more of their ball domination.

Morris said: “I thought, in the first half, we got ourselves into some good positions, but we weren’t able to exploit them.

“I don’t think we chose the right pass at times, and – on the technical side – the execution of the pass wasn’t great.

“And then when we got into good positions, we maybe weren’t set up as well as we could have been – people arriving in the box, for example.

“We didn’t do enough for the all the possession we had; you’d like to cause a lot more problems.

“We lacked quality in the final third and made some unnecessary passes which took us out of decent areas. But when we did get into decent areas, the quality wasn’t there. We did lack a bit of a punch.”

MATCH REPORT: Saunders scores only goal as Tranmere topple Swindon.

Morris rubbishes claims of potential rift with striker Charlie Austin.

Despite being at home, Tranmere only managed to create three meaningful opportunities in the 90 minutes as they attempted to bank in and frustrate.

Morris stated his team should know what to expect when faced with negative tactics from the opposition and was disappointed not to see some sort of reward for their efforts.

He said: “Teams [try to frustrate when ahead] in this league. When they get a lead, they just want to be organised and be difficult to break down.

“When you come up against organised teams, you need to make sure that if you are dominating the ball like we were, the quality needs to be better. Especially when you get closer to their goal because it all becomes a little bit more compact.

“And you need to make sure that when balls are going in the box, you’re getting on the end of them or threatening the goal.

“We didn’t do that well enough, although I still think we had chances to score and could have got something from the game.”