SWINDON Town striker Hallam Hope believes his teammates showed a different side to their game during the 1-0 win against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

Brett Pitman’s header in the closing stages allowed Swindon to leapfrog Rovers in the table and give manager John Sheridan his first win since taking charge.

Following the gritty performance against their fellow strugglers, Hope said Town finally proved they can do the ugly side well and showed the side is capable of staying compact and grinding out a narrow victory if needs be.

He said: “We’ve got good players who can play freely, but it’s the ugly side that maybe we’ve not been as good at this year. I thought we showed that side of our game on Saturday.

“We had to play long sometimes, which you’re going to have to do in games, and it worked out for us.

“We ground the result out, it wasn’t pretty like it was last year, but that’s a part of the game that we’ve got to get better at and I thought we did it well on Saturday.

“The quality is obviously better in League One than in League Two, so sometimes you just have to stay solid, nick a goal and win 1-0.”

As well as feeling proud of being able to toil for a vital three points, Hope paid tribute to his team’s work ethic as Town kept their first league clean sheet of the season.

The striker said: “We were buzzing to get the three points and a clean sheet as well. That’s something we’ve been looking to get for a while, the clean sheet, so it was nice to finally do it.

“We all had to dig in, everyone had to give 100 per cent because getting that win and clean sheet was really important to us.

“Everyone has to play a part, hopefully we’re always going to score goals, so if we do that we’ll win more than we lose.”