SWINDON head coach Sean Lynn praised the character of his side as they inflicted late heart-break on Royal Wootton Bassett in their 20-17 success at Ballards Ash on Saturday.

In what was always going to be a blood and thunder local derby, there was added pressure on both sides as they looked to haul themselves away from the bottom regions of South West One East.

With promises of a 10-try blitz at the members’ pre-match dinner, Bassett looked keen to make that a reality as Kyle Lovell emerged triumphant from under a host of bodies just four minutes in, but the conversion went wide.

The hosts kept the scoreboard ticking over with two penalties before Lovell saw himself heading to the sin bin for an infraction in his own 22.

Swindon were only able to make marginal gains as they kicked two penalties to Bassett’s one in the 10 minutes that followed.

However, Sam Williams dragged the visitors to within a point at the break as, with the heavens opening, he made the most of the difficult conditions with ball in hand to pick up a turnover close to the halfway line and run in for a converted try.

The second half was a less entertaining affair and it appeared that a Bassett penalty would be the only score of the period before, with less than 10 minutes remaining, Jordan Sheppard intercepted to run half the length of the pitch and touch down under the posts.

“We did dig in deep and the key word is character,” said a relieved Lynn.

“We have shown that to be where we were at half-time, because we didn’t turn up to the races.

“For probably five or 10 minutes, we had a good spell in the first half and we were still in the game.

“The try before the break was huge, it was massive for us.

“We tried addressing what we were going to do at half-time and it helps when you are only one point adrift.

“It was more about playing territorially in the second half and going long because our line-out wasn’t functioning at all.

“We didn’t do it but we had an interception and we came up trumps.

“We’ve been in those scenarios where we have lost tight games.”

Meanwhile, Bassett head coach Alan Low could not fault his side’s efforts but knows his side must back their own abilities if they are to get away from the depths of the table, having sunk to third from bottom.

“We played well today and credit to Swindon, the two tries they have scored were from 60 metres out,” he said.

“It’s a difficult one but with all the territory and possession, we have to be able to score some points.

“We were a little bit too quick to kick the ball away, rather than build pressure.

“It was a good performance, you can’t take that away from the lads, and they’ve done really well.”