PORT Vale manager Micky Adams felt his side were “punished by good players” after watching Swindon Town come from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Vale Park.

Doug Loft and Tom Pope put the hosts into a commanding position at half-time during the League One clash, despite Swindon dominating long passages of play, but the visitors battled back in the second period with Nile Ranger, Alex Prichard and Nathan Byrne scoring the goals that gave the Wiltshire outfit all three points.

Adams was highly critical of his players post-match, saying: “It is probably a little bit too simplistic to say that with the wind we scored two goals and with the wind they scored three. Forget the conditions, we should do better, looking at the goals we conceded we could have done better for all three.

“They have not defended well enough. The first goal, if you are marking Nile Ranger you should know where he is on the pitch. If the ball goes over your head and he is behind you, you’ve got yourself in the wrong position as a defender, so we are disappointed with that and we are on the back foot straight away.

“It was a fact that we gave the boys today, the last 15 minutes of both halves and the first 15 minutes of the second half is when we have conceded the most goals. We made them aware of that and being two goals up at half time we knew the conditions would come into play, but let’s start the second half well, but we didn’t do that.

“We got punished by some good players, let’s face it – Ranger, Pritchard and I thought (Massimo) Luongo ran the show in the second half.

“If you let good players play you are always going to be struggling and we have not got close enough to them today and it has cost us.

“The left-back scores the third goal, so if I am a right winger playing against a left-back who scores then I am going to be disappointed.

“To put that right you make changes and give other people an opportunity.

“We have got other people there that have probably sat on the bench or have not been a part of it who have been struggling with their own games and the little break has given them a little taste for it again.”