Soccer
Ian Holloway hails Swindon hat-trick hero Aaron Drinan
Swindon boss Ian Holloway praised the club for keeping hold of Aaron Drinan, whose second-half hat-trick sunk Colchester.
League Two’s top scorer last season turned the game on its head to earn his side a 3-1 win, having last week signed a new contract to keep him at the club until 2030.
Holloway said: “He’s above the level, he’s hard to mark, he’s going to score loads and I’m delighted we’ve not done what Colchester do, which is sell their best players.
“I feel for their manager and his brother. They do a great job – consistently play a way that is really tough to get around and get about and they sell their best players, whereas we are trying to move forward.
“I feel like something’s coming, but we’ve got to make it happen.
“That’s a massive result against a bogey team for us.”
But Holloway was not completely happy, adding: “I thought we were crap in the first half. We looked leggy, they looked sharp.
“And what’s annoying is we get 3-1 up, the place is rocking, and then we kick everything long.”
Colchester looked to be cruising after Kylian Kouassi’s early goal.
Moses Sesay spotted the burly striker‘s run and slipped him in to hammer into the roof of the net just 13 minutes into his full debut.
The visitors were on top but failed to make their dominance pay as Oscar Thorn fired low straight at Connor Ripley and Jack Payne blasted over the bar.
Town were level four minutes after the break when Jay Williams brought down Anthony Munda and Drinan converted the rebound after Thimothee Lo-Tutala parried his penalty.
Substitute Joseph Hungbo went close with two curling efforts which went inches wide before testing the keeper with a delightful chip while on the run which had Lo-Tutala scrambling to tip over.
Hungbo was again at the heart of things for Swindon’s second goal as he found Mitch Clark in the box before the ball broke to Drinan to blast in in the 77th minute.
Two minutes later Jack Thomson fed Drinan who calmly tucked the ball between the keeper’s legs to seal the win.
U’s manager Danny Cowley said: “We played some really good football, but we should have been more ruthless because we were only 1-0 up. The game should be dead.
“We played for 45 minutes today in the first half, but that’s not enough to win matches.
“It’s hard to manage when you have a team that plays as well as that in the first half and then as bad as we did in the second.
“We’re going to have to feel the pain of this because it stings pretty bad.”
