SWINDON Town head coach Scott Lindsey denied suggestions his players suffered from a lack of discipline against Salford City despite seven Robins players being shown a card in the 0-0 draw on Saturday.

Referee Andy Woolmer booked eight players in total but only one was a Salford man, leading the Swindon head coach to say he thought his team was “hard done by.”

Harry McKirdy was shown a red card following two yellows prior to half-time. The first was for dissent, and the second was for an innocuous collision in the 43rd minute.

McKirdy will now miss the League Cup first-round clash with Walsall on Tuesday night rather than next weekend’s trip to former club Carlisle United after picking up a one-match suspension.

Asked how Lindsey assessed Town’s overall discipline against Salford, he said: “Yeah, good.

“Listen, I thought we were hard done by. You all saw the game, I thought we were hard done by.

“I think Harry’s second yellow – having watched it back – it looked like shoulder to shoulder, and I thought he was very unlucky.

“Harry is Harry, and yeah, he needs to tidy up bits, he knows that. But I thought, overall, our discipline was good, and we were a bit hard done by.”

After being booked 13 times last season – many of which were for dissent, an issue that has plagued the 25-year-old throughout his career – McKirdy’s opening yellow of the new season was another totally avoidable caution.

Lindsey hopes the fact that McKirdy won’t be able to do what he loves for a brief spell may shock him into better behaviour moving forward.

On controlling McKirdy’s passion, Lindsey said: “He’s going to miss games now, so that will frustrate him.

“Harry is the type of character where he’s happy in life when his football is going well. So now he’s going to miss games and he’s not going to be happy in life for however long he misses. Hopefully, that will make him tidy up himself.

“But I think the second yellow was harsh, I really do, having watched it back. I thought it was shoulder to shoulder, there was no real foul in there. The player made more of it then it needed to, he was quite smart about it.

“There were decisions today… we should have had a penalty just after half-time where Jacob Wakeling gets brought down in the box. I watched it back after the game – it’s a clear, clear penalty in my opinion, but the referee doesn’t give it.”