SWINDON Town head coach Ben Garner blamed a poor refereeing decision for his side’s defeat after Barrow won 2-0 at Holker Street thanks to a pair of second-half penalties.

Former Town man Ollie Banks slotted the first spot-kick home just after the hour before substitute Josh Gordon picked the same side to dispatch an 87th-minute set-piece.

Swindon could have been behind at the break too had blatant fouls by Dion Conroy and Akin Odimayo been punished by referee, Ollie Yates.

Conroy saw red post-match for his protestations, and Garner was yet again left frustrated with the performance of the referee.

He said: “I thought we started the game well – we were probably the better side in the first half.

“There was nothing in the game at the start of the second half, but the first penalty decision changes the momentum of the game, and the second one completely changes it.

“That made it hard for us, but we didn’t do enough in the second half to break them down.

“On a pitch that was cut up and in difficult conditions, it was hard at 1-0 but we’re still in the game. But at 2-0, that took it out of our reach with the second penalty.”

Town were toothless in attack and barely created anything of note – summed up by two shots on target in the 90 minutes.

Yet Garner felt the referee robbed his team of the chance to take a point back down to Wiltshire.

He said: “I can’t fault the effort of the players today, that’s three away games in a week, so it wasn’t a lack of endeavour.

“As much as we want to keep the onus on us and look at what we can do better – which we will do – that decision (to award a penalty) massively changes the game.

“I’m just disappointed because of the fact that we prepared, we travelled all this way, supporters have come up in their numbers and had a very long journey, and the game has been decided by two poor refereeing decisions in my opinion.”