RICHIE Wellens felt ‘let down’ by Swindon Town’s first-half display at Broadhall Way as his side suffered a 2-0 defeat at Stevenage in League Two last night.

Alex Revell’s header 10 minutes before half-time gave Stevenage the lead before Ilias Chair compounded the misery on Wellens’ men with a long-range strike from inside his own half in second-half stoppage time after a much brighter period that often threatened to produce a deserved Town equaliser.

Following a similar loss at fellow play-off hopefuls Carlise United on Saturday, Town now sit 12th in the table, seven points off the top seven.

Wellens lambasted his side’s efforts over the opening 45 minutes and admitted he felt compelled into making all three changes at once on the hour as his players had given him no other option with a lethargic display.

He said: “I’m disappointed to lose. In the first half, we never started – we lacked energy, we lacked quality when we had opportunities to play.

“Their first goal is a set-play goal where someone heads it from three or four yards out off the floor.

“It’s a strange goal to concede and you probably won’t see that again.

“That was disappointing, but the main thing was a lack of energy.

“I thought our three subs made an impact – other than Kyle Bennett and Keshi Anderson showing little flashes of skill at times, Dion Conroy was our best player by a mile.

“Not too many turned up, and in a big game, that’ll stay in my mind.”

Since joining the club back in November, performances under Wellens have largely been improved while results have not always followed suit.

In last night’s defeat, the Town chief was left reeling at a number of poor decisions from his players that cost them the chance to emerge with something to show for their efforts.

Wellens said: “I think it’s important that you make a statement and I think the players knew at half-time that I wasn’t happy.

“I felt let down, to be honest, because when you play Saturday-Tuesday, you can’t really work on anything on the training ground.

“I made a couple of changes to try and freshen us up and add a bit of physicality in there.

“We’ll move on and get better. We have to because that was the worst 45 minutes in a long time.”