SWINDON Town Women’s director of football Tom Hartley believes his team can go into their FA Cup second-round tie against Plymouth Argyle this weekend with genuine confidence, despite being underdogs on paper.

National League Division One South West club Swindon are set to host National League South Argyle at the County Ground on Sunday, with a spot in the third round and a potential tie against a Championship club the prize.

Town are unbeaten in five heading into the second-round tie, while Argyle have only won one of their previous five – the Cup game against Cheltenham Town.

With the two side’s form significantly contrasting ahead of Sunday’s 1pm kick-off, Hartley believes that could be a key ingredient in Swindon causing an upset.

He said: “We’ve played two teams in the competition so far who are below us in the pyramid, so you could argue that we should have made it this far.

“But saying that, we’ve been on a really consistent run lately where we’ve won the last five or six, including the two cup games.

“That’s brilliant, and it will do a lot for the team’s confidence. Hopefully, it will also attract more people to come and watch Swindon play.

“Playing a team like Plymouth – who are finding life a little bit difficult in the league above – and with us being in good form at the moment, it’s a cup tie we can go into with confidence of perhaps causing some kind of upset.”

Swindon are playing their second game of the season at SN1 and hope to see more in attendance than the 720 who watched the 10-0 thumping of Paulton Rovers last month.

Hartley has assured fans that Town will make the most of their new home by displaying a variety to their game and exploiting all of the space on the County Ground pitch.

He said: “The first-round game probably felt like a real occasion, and rightly so, whereas this game and future games will feel more like business as usual.

“We’ll see the Women’s team play there more and more, and having the FA Cup run played at the County Ground has been really helpful with that continuity. For the girls, it’s further proof that they are just part of the club.

“The County Ground pitch has that little bit more space, especially down the wings, for us to exploit, and we also have Annie Colston – our top scorer – who is quite versatile in the way she plays.

“So we think we can create problems for Plymouth, not just in wide areas, but centrally too.”