SWINDON Ladies pushed Premier Division 2A high-flyers Cheltenham 2nd close at the weekend before falling to a narrow 2-1 loss on the road in the West Club Women’s Hockey League.

The hosts started the stronger of the two teams, putting Swindon under pressure, and it didn’t take them long to turn that into the opening goal after 10 minutes.

Swindon then woke up and started to improve their link-up play from midfield to forwards, which resulted in a number of penalty corners.

The visitors were unable to convert their chances, however, and the remainder of the half was evenly matched with no further goals added.

Swindon came out fired up after the break and threw everything at Cheltenham, with Linda Brouwers covering every inch of the pitch to feed Lynsey Wall and Vic Stokes, who tried their best to level the scores, but to no avail.

The push for an equaliser left the defence exposed and Cheltenham capitalised to extend their lead.

Swindon went for broke, pushing three players up front and soon won a penalty corner.

Chloe Lewis stepped up and fired the ball hard into the bottom corner of the goal to give Swindon a glimmer of hope, but time quickly ran out in their bid to salvage a draw.

Swindon Ladies 2nd suffered a tough day in Wessex Division 1, going down 6-0 at home to Corsham.

SWINDON Men were unable to hold on for victory in the Verde Recreo Hockey League Championship as they were held to a 2-2 draw at Firebrands A.

The visitors started positively as Julius Cousins worked well down the right, while captain Tom Goldsmith got in several superb tackles.

Despite being the dominant side, Swindon fell behind on the scoreboard, but undeterred, they rallied and manage to level the scores before half-time through Goldsmith, following a short corner.

Swindon started the second half brightly and got themselves in front from another short corner. The ball was played to Rob Riddell, whose strike across goal was deflected into the net by a defender.

The visitors continued to defend well and threatened further goals on the break.

However, their hopes of victory were dashed late on when a Cheltenham short corner was deflected beyond keeper Alan Gough to earn Cheltenham a share of the spoils.

Swindon A remain under threat of relegation in Central 2 after a 5-3 loss at home to South Glos.

However, the mood within the Swindon B camp is a complete contrast as they sealed the East Central 2 title with a dominant 5-0 victory away at North Wilts A.

Braces from Andy Birnie and Daniel Bruce did the majority of the damage with Dab Hindon also on target.