WE’VE been here before, haven’t we? We’ve heard the same reasons, the same resolutions. But it’s happened again.

After the weekend draw at Rochdale, where the Lancashire side equalised with four minutes to spare, Town fans were assured the Robins squad would buck the trend and hold a game out to its conclusion.

Be it for three points or one, late goals were not an option.

Last night at Notts County, Swindon’s backline held out a little longer – two minutes to be precise – but it was not long enough.

Magpies supporters may reason that Lee Hughes’ 88th-minute winner for the hosts was justifiable, given the home team’s considerable supremacy in the first half and for many isolated parts of the second.

That is still no excuse. To concede once in the dying moments is forgivable, a handful of times reprehensible. When it becomes commonplace something has to be addressed. And fast.

And Town boss Danny Wilson is well aware of the nature of the task at hand, although even he thought his Robins had secured a point from their long day-trip to Nottingham.

“We thought we’d seen the game out with good, hard work and then we conceded a very poor goal at the end,” he said.

“We just fell asleep against a quite experienced boy.

“We’ve turned off, we’ve not seen the cross coming in and we’ve completely lost him in the box.

“Their keeper’s pulled off a couple of good saves, Phil’s pulled off a couple of good saves and you think it’s going to be a stalemate which is fine.

“You’d come away saying you’re happy with a clean sheet, but then a lack of concentration has cost us dearly.”

Before Hughes’ timely strike the visitors’ defence had stood up well to a Notts County unit who, in the opening 45 minutes, had a surprising swagger about them considering their recent dismal run of four successive league defeats.

Town almost shot themselves in the foot within five minutes, when Lecsinel Jean-Francois’ casual attempted head-back to Phil Smith was intercepted by Craig Westcarr, but the striker saw his low shot saved by the Swindon stopper.

And eight minutes later Smith came to the away outfit’s rescue once more, tipping Westcarr’s daisy-cutter from 18 yards round the post.

Westcarr, in league with Lee Miller up front, was electric and often found himself in space thanks to incisive running in between centre-backs Jean-Francois and Sean Morrison.

But the Town rearguard withstood everything the hosts could throw at them before the break, and even had a glorious opportunity of their own on 35 minutes.

David Prutton, who again put in a talismanic shift in the middle of the park, linked with Matt Ritchie down the right. Ritchie darted to the byline and pulled the ball back for Prutton, who pulled a good save out of Rob Burch in the home goal.

At half-time Town appeared to have mastered a County storm, and almost took the lead seven minutes into the second period, when Charlie Austin’s imperious header was cleared off the line.

After the interval the match evened out, and with both defences on top, clear-cut chances were available only at a very high premium.

Jon-Paul McGovern, impressive in his brief cameo, speculated from 35 yards – forcing a decent save out of Burch.

At the other end, the Magpies were reduced to long-range efforts through the free-kicks of Ben Davies.

It seemed for all likelihood that the stranger – a stalemate – was about to reintroduce itself to Swindon Town, when with two minute remaining Hughes popped up at the back post, completely unmarked, to slide past Smith.

“You don’t win games 3-2 or 4-3 every week, you have to get some form of stability at the back,” said Wilson afterwards.

“We’ve got to keep doing the right things and not turn off when we think the job’s done. The job isn’t done.

“We have no automatic right to be up there. We have no divine right, just because we went to the play-offs last year to turn up this season and win every game that we play.

“We have to work very, very hard for what we do. We have to get the players organised and there’s no use people moaning. This season we’ve played well in a lot of games, we’ve just given goals away.”

A cruel blow? Maybe. A lesson learned? Aren’t they all. Crawley will be the acid test.