SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens felt the lack of a ruthless edge again cost his side as they were made to settle for a third League Two draw in a row on Saturday after their trip to Oldham Athletic ended 2-2.

As was the case in recent matches at home to Yeovil Town and away at Newport County, Swindon produced plenty of promising play at Boundary Park but that was not reflected in the full-time score.

Three points from three games in eight days means the gap between Wellens’ side and the play-off places has now grown to five points with four games to go.

Swindon were forced to come from behind after the Latics took an early lead and although they turned the game around to lead midway through the second half, the visitors were undone again before the final whistle.

Wellens saw plenty of positives in Swindon’s performance and believes it should have been rewarded with more than just a single point.

“For 70 minutes, we had total domination on another shocker of a pitch – it was probably worse than Newport,” said Wellens.

“We took a massive sucker-punch from the first ball that came into our box. I think it was the only shot Oldham had in the first half and they scored from it.

“It gave them something to hold onto, but for the remainder of the half, we had total domination.

“We had quick, intricate play – maybe the pitch let us down a couple of times and then our lack of technical ability let us down.

“We just need to be ruthless because if we were ruthless today, we win easy.”

George Edmundson’s early opener for Oldham was cancelled out by a Michael Doughty penalty on the stroke of half-time, before Kyle Bennett gave the visitors the lead on the hour.

However, the Latics rallied well in the final half-hour of the match and grabbed an equaliser through Johan Branger’s acrobatic strike.

Wellens said: “We were really positive in the first half and then came out in the second half in the same manner. Oldham just couldn’t deal with our system and the way we were playing.

“Again, it was total domination and they just couldn’t get near us, but then the game became a little bit easy for us – we started to take an extra touch and slowed it down and were getting caught.

“All Oldham do is boot it long and hope for a second ball or a set-piece or a long throw.

“They scored from a mistake, which is a killer blow, because I thought we were just about to weather the storm.”