WITH a weekend off Mark Cooper has no plans to spend his time away from the touchline with his feet up.

He will be watching games, analysing Swindon’s upcoming opponents and he is already gearing his side towards next Saturday with Bradford.

It is that level of detailed analysis that means Cooper is not surprised by much in League One. Whilst some have been impressed by the early form showed by relative minnows Fleetwood Town Cooper is fully aware of the secrets of their success.

“Fleetwood are not a surprise to me, because you know and you hear what kind of budgets and what kind of wages they can afford to players,” said Cooper when asked about the Cod Army’s start to the season.

“If you can afford to play players top wages you invariably get the best players. It doesn’t guarantee you anything but it helps.

“You get an idea what certain teams are paying and there is some teams paying a lot of money. The teams that are up there are going to be strong, Preston are going to be strong, Fleetwood are going to be strong.”

In spite of the financial muscle that some of Swindon’s rivals are able to wield, Cooper does not see a standout side in this year’s division.

“I think it’s an open league this year, I don’t there is a Wolves, I don’t think there’s a Brentford. I think there are probably 10/11/12 teams that have got a serious chance of being in the mix,” he added.

Whether Swindon are one of those sides is another matter and Cooper would not be drawn on whether he is targeting promotion.

Swindon Town’s Australian pair Massimo Luongo and Brad Smith both appeared for their country last night against Belgium.

Luongo earned his second cap coming off the bench for Mark Bresciano and Smith made his debut for the Socceroos ten minutes later. However they could not prevent a 2-0 defeat to Belgium.

“I think it’s important that we just keep progressing here and see where that takes us, you know, hopefully, we can get promoted at some point, we just have to keep progressing as a football club and as a team.”

Town Ladies reponded strongly to their cup defeat to Charlton by hammering Larkhall Atheletic 4-1 last night.

Goals from Sally Butterfield, Beth Thompson, Sarah Uzzell and Michelle Rich from the spot gave Town a comfortable margin of victory.

A late red card leading to Rich’s penalty, allowed Swindon to ease through the last ten minutes.