SWINDON Town goalkeeper Murphy Mahoney was ‘buzzing’ to see his pre-season preparations pay off against Peterborough United on Tuesday night, even though the Robins were not able to progress into the League Cup second round.

Mahoney kept Posh at bay in the first-round tie, pulling off some terrific saves and showing Town fans they are right to be excited about his potential as the club's number one.

The 21-year-old goalkeeper kept his side alive in the late stages of the game, making vital saves from the haunting efforts of Peterborough’s Joe Tomlinson and Jonson Clarke-Harris.

When asked which save out of the two was his favourite, the Queens Park Rangers loanee said: “Probably the one from Tomlinson as it’s something myself and Mildy [Steve Mildenhall] have been working on.

“You can sort of anticipate when players cut inside and want to get a shot off, working on different triggers about getting deeper to the line.

“I don’t think I make that save a month ago, so I’m buzzing with the stop as you can see the training paying off.”

Mahoney also praised the efforts of his fellow defenders, claiming he did not have much to do throughout the game.

He said: “Peterborough have a lot of threats, they have tricky wingers and, I don’t want to keep saying it but, they are from the league above.

“I just feel like we were very good in terms of our man-to-man pressing all over the pitch, and we didn’t give them too much respect or much time on the ball.

“I think throughout the whole 110 minutes of playing I only made three saves, so it’s a credit to the boys.”

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The Robins’ performance against Darren Ferguson’s side was strong, and the League Two side held their own in normal time.

Reflecting on the performance and the penalty shootout, Mahoney said: “For large parts of the game we were the better side, we controlled the game for most of the time.

“When it goes to penalties it’s a bit of a flip of a coin. I did my best for the team but unfortunately, I just couldn’t get near any of them.

“Obviously it's gutting we’re out of the competition, but I think there’s still a lot of positives to take going forward.”

Town will face Crewe Alexandra at home this Saturday, and Mahoney believes that taking positivity into the game is the best thing they can do: “As a team, we’ll go over the game.

“Obviously, we won’t dwell on it, what’s done is done, we’ll take the positives out of the game and just try and apply that to Saturday.”