SWINDON Town boss Mark Cooper hailed his side’s steely resolve as they held on for an impressive 2-1 success at Bradford City.

While the County Ground men should have been out of sight by the hour mark at Valley Parade, there were times that the Robins had to cling on for dear life.

And had it not been for a man-of-the-match display from goalkeeper Wes Foderingham, who saved a penalty and produced some stunning saves at the death to deny Alan Sheehan and Stephen Darby, the result could have been so different.

But as it was a first-half brace from new striker Jon Obika that was enough to seal the points after a Louis Thompson’s own goal gave the hosts a 10th minute lead.

Cooper said: “After half-time, in my opinion, it should have been game over.

“We had chances that you have to finish and put the game to bed, if you don’t you always leave that opportunity for the other team and our goalie has got us out of jail.

“We said to the players (after the game), it is great that you have come away and dug in.

“Maybe last year we might have caved in there and conceded an equaliser, but we stood up to it.

“You know what you are going to get they are going to stick balls into the box, James Hanson is very powerful, so we had to defend that.”

Cooper heaped praise on his keeper and described some of the stops that Foderingham produced in west Yorkshire as ‘world class’.

“The breaks that we got in this game was our goalkeeper making world-class saves,” the Town boss said.

“I don’t think that is luck (though), it is the goalie coach (Steve Hale) showing Wes where the penalty was going to go and he makes them saves everyday.

“ But we know we had to rely on our goalkeeper to make a couple of world class saves.”

The Town chief was also relieved that it was the opposition turn to be on the end of the referee Richard Clark’s red card after the same official dismissed Troy Archibald-Henville and Nathan Thompson late in the game at Notts County back in April.

Sheehan was dismissed deep into second-half stoppage time for striking Raphael Branco.

“It was just handbags,” Cooper said. “The lad has raised his hands and the referee has decided to send him off.

“The referee last year sent two of our lads off at Notts County so fortunately it wasn’t our turn today.”