SWINDON Town Ladies are facing what may appear to be an early-season six-pointer, but manager Steve Robertson doesn’t want his team to pile pressure on themselves to beat Queens Park Rangers tomorrow.

Town find themselves second-from-bottom in the FA Women’s Premier League Southern Division heading into their trip to last-placed QPR.

But with Swindon still acclimatising to life in the third tier of English women’s football, Robertson believes that his side must err on the side of caution.

Town lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace Ladies last weekend but put in a spirited display and Robertson is urging his charges to concentrate solely on their performance when they step onto the pitch at Uxbridge in west London on Sunday (2pm).

“You could look at this like a cup final,” said Robertson.

“We want to get three points to catch up with the chasing pack in the bottom half of the table and they’ll look at us and think ‘they’ve only won one game so we want to beat them to drag them down to where we are’.

“But we’ve not played QPR yet and we won’t know anything about them until we’ve played them, so it’s not going to be easy.

“With any away game in this league, if you can get something, you’d be happy to take that home.

“It’s important that we just think about how we perform and if we can play the way we did against Palace and go the same amount of time without conceding as we did against them, then we should have a good chance of getting something on Sunday.

“For us, it’s about consistency. Sometimes, we’ve performed really well and then dropped off a bit in the next game, so we need to try and maintain a good level.”

Midfield skipper Michelle Rich, striker Abby Picton and defender Sam Quinn all miss the QPR trip.

Tomorrow’s clash has been brought forward due to C & K Basildon’s involvement in the Women’s Premier League Cup, with Swindon now visiting the Essex outfit on October 23.