DEFENDER Dion Conroy felt Swindon Town under-performed in every area of the pitch on Tuesday night as their slim play-off hopes took a huge hit following a second defeat in four days in League Two away at Stevenage.

An Alex Revell header preceded an audacious strike from inside his own half from Ilias Chair in second-half stoppage time to consign Town to a 2-0 defeat at Broadhall Way.

And with seven points to make up on the current play-off holding teams, performances like Tuesday night will do Town no favours in attempting to overhaul the sides in front of them before May.

Conroy, who has featured in six consecutive games for Richie Wellens’ side now, says the Swindon players let their standards slip on a night where victory was certainly possible pre-kick-off against an out-of-sorts Stevenage.

The 23-year-old said: “It was a disappointing performance. I don’t think it was to the standard we have set over the last month and a bit.

“Against Carlisle, it was a bit different. We definitely deserved to win against them but, unfortunately, we lost.

“In this game, there were some things we can take from it that we can work on because that wasn’t our usual performance – we could have done everything a bit better.

“The conditions were horrible, and Stevenage were bombing it long – the keeper was kicking it a mile. They made it a horrible game, but we should have done better.

“Our standards are a lot higher than that. We need to pick our heads up and we will be on the training field working on it to hopefully put it right on Saturday.”

Conroy was ultimately left disappointed at the fact Town largely restricted their hosts to half-chances and were only eventually killed off by a moment of magic late on.

Manager Wellens admitted he started set-piece specialist Matt Taylor in the hope that his productive left boot could cause Stevenage problems in blustery conditions.

However, Conroy saw the opposite take effect as Taylor continuously hit the first man, while Stevenage scored from one of their six corners.

Discussing Stevenage’s attacking threats, Conroy said: “I thought we were good defensively and Stevenage had only maybe two or three chances in the whole game – and the goal they scored at the end was a freak goal.

“The two or three chances they had weren’t anything major. I think we dealt with them very well, but it was just one where they took a couple of sloppy chances that we gave them.

“Conceding from a set-piece always hurts. Stevenage are a big threat from set-pieces, so we were switched onto it, but it was so difficult in the wind – it made it 10 times harder.”