SWINDON Supermarine manager Lee Spalding felt his side showed their true colours in the second half as they blew fellow Southern League Premier Division South struggles Basingstoke Town away 5-2.

Marine made a slow start and were punished early on as experienced striker Sam Argent tapped home, but the hosts grew into the game and Stuart Fleetwood calmly slotted home a rebound shortly before half-time.

The home side then came out in the second half and showed the kind of performance that Spalding felt epitomised his team at their best.

Henry Spalding bundled in his first goal for the club before two classy strikes from Conor McDonagh and a long-range piledriver from Ryan Campbell set Marine on their way to all three points.

The only downside for Marine was an own goal from centre-back Matt Williams, the defender inadvertently shinning the ball past Will Henry, but it did little to detract from an otherwise dominant second 45 minutes for the home side.

Spalding was delighted with the character his side showed in difficult conditions – as they made it four wins from five in the league – and feels his team are now producing results by consistently playing the style of football that he wants to see.

He said: “I thought the boys were brilliant today. We started the game slowly. We started with a back three, but we got caught out a few times with a ball down the outside and they ended up scoring from it. We changed it straight away and the reaction was really good.

“In the first half, for the first 20 minutes, we were a little bit off it. I don’t think we were at the pace of the game, but the next 25 minutes I thought we were the better side.

“The message to the players at half-time was, I don’t want the same scenario as we had against Chesham last weekend when I didn’t think we passed the ball enough.

“Last week, it wasn’t about competing, it was about not being good enough on the ball and I thought today, in the second half, especially, when we got the ball down and played, we made it really difficult for them and caused them problems.

“That second-half performance, that was us. That performance is what we’re about. We’ve got some really good footballers who can pass the ball well, we scored some really good goals and for me, it could have been seven or eight in the end.

“I said to the players after, we’ve got to bottle up this feeling, remember how good it feels and remember how we played and use it as a springboard to kick on.”