SWINDON Town head coach Jody Morris wondered if he had unknowingly run over a black cat since arriving in Wiltshire after bemoaning a recent lack of luck for his team.

Morris said the latest in a long line of unfavourable situations was Jacob Wakeling’s first-minute red card against Stockport County followed by the failure to award Swindon a penalty of their own moments later.

The incidents on Saturday came after a harmful spate of injuries greatly reduced the Town boss’ selection dilemma.

Early on in his first senior management stint, Morris admitted he has already learned plenty from this unique sequence.

Morris said: “I’d like to know where the black cat was that I ran over, because some of the things that have been going wrong recently…

“It’s one of those where I’m thinking, it might have happened at different points, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it all happen in such a small amount of time.

Jody Morris says referees should do post-match interviews to explain decisions.

“But as far as learning things is concerned, I’ve had to put up with poor referees before, I’ve had to put up with going down to 10 men before. I’ve seen enough naivety in teams that I’ve coached before.

“The more I can try to educate the players and make them realise when the game management needs to come out, the better we will be able to deal with these situations.

“But it’s clearly a process and, at the moment, we’re falling on the wrong side of some luck – I’m hoping that it turns in our favour a little bit.”

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If Town are to upset the formbook and crash the top seven’s imminent play-off party, a dramatic upturn in luck will almost certainly be required.

Morris says that even if Swindon are not able to overcome the 10-point deficit in their final nine games, learning how to deal with adversity will be key for his young group of players moving forward.

He said: “If this was at the beginning of the season, I’ll be standing here going: “oh well, hopefully it will come in roundabouts, they’ll get their just rewards in the end.”

“But in this case, we are running out of time. We could be on the right end of decisions and on the right end of some luck soon.

“I think we will be better off for this in the long run, I hope we are, because if we don’t use these moments to learn or as an education, then we won’t be able to come out the other side of it as a better team.”