SUPERB Swindon gave skipper Adam Westall plenty of Christmas cheer by signing off for the festive period with a 21-17 victory at home to Leighton Buzzard.

Sean Lynn’s side had to recover from a slow start at Greenbridge Road and were 10 points in arrears early on.

But it was virtually all one-way traffic from then on in and converted tries from Tom Mannion, Connal Knott and Adam Dobie saw them take control of the contest.

Swindon were just as impressive in defence as they were in attack, and only saw their tryline breached again in the dying minutes of the match.

Fly-half Westall said: “They scored a late seven points with the last play of the game which made it look a bit closer than it was.

“But that’s not taking anything away from them because it was a really tough game and we had to dig deep right the way through to get the result.

“It was a huge 80 minute effort from all the lads. The fact we were able to come through it and get the win shows how far we have come.

“They were 10-0 up early on and playing pretty well but we never really panicked.

“We are fully aware that if we can find our best rugby we will put a lot of teams under pressure, and we were able to do that.

“We got back to 10-7 at half-time and just went on from there. They never really looked like scoring again until right at the very end.”

Swindon can now put their feet up for the two-week break in the comfortable position of fourth in the South West 1 East table.

They are just one point behind third-placed Windsor and have a seven-point buffer back to Newbury Blues in fifth.

That is largely down to Swindon’s solid home form, with Westall and co triumphing six times in eight games in front of their own fans this term.

Westall added: “We are trying to make our ground a really hard place to come and I think we’ve only lost two or three games at home in 2014, so I think we’re getting back to our best rugby there.

“We’ve signed off 2014 well. Although we wanted five points and got four, we can’t be too disappointed because it’s probably the first time in a while we haven’t got a bonus point with a win.”