SWINDON Town manager Mark Cooper has begged his players to stop doing things the hard way – as it’s leaving him with a few too many unwanted grey hairs.

Four days after sneaking a 2-2 draw from their Johnstone’s Paint Trophy area final clash first leg at Peterborough United after going 2-0 down, Swindon came from behind in style again on Saturday at Port Vale as they turned around a two-goal deficit to win on the road for the first time since November 12.

Goals from Nile Ranger, Alex Pritchard and Nathan Byrne may have left Cooper delirious at the final whistle but he also felt as if he had aged significantly over 90 dramatic minutes.

“They’ve got to stop being 2-0 down because they’re making it hard for me and giving me more grey hairs,” he said. “I said to them before the game on Wednesday that they only get to play in this team if you work your socks off.

“The way we play we’re going to concede chances, I’m not too worried about that and the longer we go on the better we’ll get with that. It’s the consequence of leaving ourselves a little bit wide open at times with the way we play.

“We kept a clean sheet in the second half. I’d like to play credit to the supporters today, they kept us going, the noise was great and they were brilliant today.”

Lee Cox found himself amongst the substitutes at Vale Park, despite having only made one appearance for Town this season, and Cooper said his style of game was the reason the midfielder was part of the matchday squad.

“With the weather and conditions we knew what kind of game it was going to be,” he said. “If we were going to make a change in the middle of the pitch we knew Coxy had what it takes to go into the minefield in there.”