YASER Kasim praised Swindon Town manager Mark Cooper’s tactics after the Robins beat Preston North End 1-0 at the County Ground.

Michael Smith’s second-half penalty was enough for Town to end Preston’s 12-match unbeaten streak and hand the hosts their first victory in eight attempts, and their first win at home since January 25.

Cooper opted to use Miles Storey alongside Smith in a front two and employ wing-backs to use the full width of the County Ground pitch, and that strategy acted as a release valve for Town when Preston did manage to enjoy occasional spells of pressure.

Overall, however, Swindon were the better side and fully deserving of all three points – largely thanks to their manager, according to Kasim.

He told the Advertiser: “When we went to their place they put the pressure on us and outmuscled us and we had to give them one back, and we did.

“I think we played some good football tactically. We used Miles’s pace, we made them drop a bit and it seemed that, even though they were putting a lot of pressure on us in midfield, we got away from it.

“We did control it a bit and we felt good at half-time. It was a bit even and they had a good spell but we thought we could go on and win the game, and we did.

“Tactically we played a good game and we’ve got to give the management credit for that.”

When asked why Town’s young squad were able to produce a performance of grit, resilience and quality after two months of fairly limps displays, Kasim said: “To sum it up, you don’t want to use it but inexperience.

“To put in a performance like that but not put it in regularly shows it’s there but we have to work to do it regularly. I don’t know why it is.

“We’re always learning and this season for me, personally, has been a learning curve.”

So when, then, will the excuse of inexperience and tender years become redundant? Next season, according to the Iraqi.

“When you make certain mistakes too many times, if you keep repeating things week after week it just shows that you aren’t learning and there’s something wrong there,” he said.

“That’s the biggest part of it because then you can’t blame inexperience if you haven’t learnt from it.

“If we go into next year and something happens the same, we have to know it happened last year and we have to use it to our advantage.

“If we don’t, we can say that next year we should have learnt from it last year.”