LEARNING to be patient in front of goal is the lesson that Richie Wellens wants his men to learn from today’s 2-1 win at Macclesfield, a result that has lifted Swindon Town into the top half of League Two.

Jak McCourt benefitted from Ben House’s intelligent header after Jermaine McGlashan’s delivered a floating cross in injury time of the second half.

The 23-year-old pounced onto the loose ball to snatch a 92nd minute winner for Town, who denied Macclesfield points for the second time this season.

But a series of chances either side of the half time whistle were wasted through a lack of patience, and Wellens hopes to erase that trait from his side’s play before the visit of table topping Lincoln City next weekend.

Wellens said: “We need to improve switching the ball and being a bit more patient.

“We feel like we need to score with every attack. When teams get free kicks and corners, I’m sometimes quite happy because I know that if we turn the ball over we have a goalkeeper with good distribution.

“We always try and leave bodies up the pitch because we know we have good pace.”

Sol Campbell’s Macclesfield could claim to feel hard done by following McCourt’s late strike.

But Swindon enjoyed the majority of possession and out-shot the hosts 12 to seven throughout the game.

Wellens, who admitted retaining possession was hard for both teams due to the bobbling nature of the ball on a cut-up pitch, said a half-time team talk similar to the one he delivered against Exeter on Tuesday worked at the second time of asking.

“We made some good chances in the first half, we could’ve been two or three up,” said Wellens.

“Keshi (Anderson) tried to backheel the ball in when he should’ve just hit it – he made that chance more difficult by being a bit fancy.

“Then we hit the crossbar from the rebound. We had two or three other really good opportunities that we didn’t take before their goal down the other end which we conceded from a set-play.

“At the moment, we can have 30 or 40 minutes of really good play and be on top but instead find ourselves a goal behind.

“Half time was similar to Exeter on Tuesday.

“It was a really difficult pitch. From the stands, it looks like there is plenty of grass on it. But it was really cut up and bobbly.

“We saw a lot of turnovers because the players weren’t passing the ball with their feet – they were hitting it with their calf or knee. It was a difficult surface, and we tried to overplay at times in the first half.

“We wanted them to play forward and put the ball behind them more in the second half. We wanted them to face towards their own goal – the winner of that game was going to be the team that made the fewest mistakes.”