SWINDON Town boss Mark Cooper has claimed that defender Raphael Branco was spat at by Wolves striker Bakary Sako towards the end of their 4-1 defeat at the County Ground.

The incident went unpunished by referee Lee Collins but Cooper says that the club won’t complain to the Football Association.

Branco, in for the injured Troy Archibald-Henville, also threw himself down to the ground in the second half when he was shoved by Nouha Dicko.

“It looked like it (spitting),” Cooper said after the match.

“I think Raffa went too easily for the first one but it looked like he spat for the second one.

“But it’s Wolves, you don’t get players sent off when you’re big clubs.”

Cooper was less than pleased with how his team performed in the first 45 minutes after the League One leaders cruised into a 3-0 lead thanks to a Sako brace and a strike from Dicko.

He said: “I don’t think you can play against a club like Wolves, with the riches they’ve got and the players they’ve got, and not have 11 men pulling in the same direction.

“In the second half when we had 11 players who rolled their sleeves up and had a go, I was really pleased with the players.

“You might get away with it against teams lower down the table, but not Wolves.

“We didn’t defend very well down the middle of the pitch in the first half and we need to address that going forward. It’s hard to press high up the pitch when you don’t have a lot of pace at the back.”

The Town boss was pleased with how the second half went as Michael Smith grabbed his second goal in as many matches before former Swindon striker Leon Clarke rubbed salt into the wounds with his late strike.

Cooper added: “We asked the players to go out and earn a moral victory which we largely did.

“I thought that Michael Smith had his best game for us tonight.

“He took his goal well.

“But we did make it easy for him. We told him to run around for 90 minutes and put himself about a bit, how hard can that be?

“And he did it.”