Cooper shoulders the blame

Cody McDonald's classy double sandwiched a deft Jake Hessenthaler header, with the visitors fully deserving of a win which boosted their own hopes of making a late run into the play-offs.

Swindon were out-thought, out-fought and ultimately outplayed by a Gillingham side who bounced back from defeat on Saturday to make it nine wins from 10 games.

Robins boss Cooper said: "I will take the blame for tonight. I might have picked the wrong team.

"The first thing I do when we lose is to look at myself and I have got to pick the players up.

"It was one of those games where we had too many players under par. No matter what we tried it wasn't good enough.

"But we're not going to panic. Results tonight mean we're no further behind."

McDonald had given them a warning as he ran in behind a square Swindon back line, only to fire wide.

But he showed brilliant awareness when the Swindon defence failed to deal with Doug Loft's innocuous cross from the left and McDonald, with his back to goal, reacted superbly to back-heel the ball in from 10 yards for his 13th league goal of the season.

Swindon might have got back in had a touch been applied to Harry Toffolo's dangerous free-kick but it would have been unjust on Gillingham, who doubled their lead just 18 seconds into the second half.

There seemed little danger when Bradley Dack had the ball near the left corner flag but he whipped in a cross and Hessenthaler glanced a header into the far corner.

Swindon huffed and puffed and briefly threatened when substitute Ben Gladwin struck the post with a crisp shot.

But Gillingham rubbed salt into Swindon's wounds with a third goal two minutes from time. Keeper Stuart Nelson sent a long ball down the pitch and McDonald caught Nathan Thompson napping and nipped in to lob his second over Wes Foderingham.

It was a convincing result which Gills boss Justin Edinburgh described as "the best win since I arrived at the club".

"We never allowed them to settle and when we won the ball we used it quickly and caused them problems," he said.

"We spoke about what we needed to do and made sure we transferred it from the training ground.

"As good a win as it was it told me a lot about the players in terms of their response after the setback of a defeat."

Edinburgh admitted he was mystified by McDonald's cheeky first goal, adding: "I wondered what he was doing but that shows the character of the player and why he gets those goals.

"It will be tough to make the play-offs but we will keep looking upwards. We're five points off the play-offs and it's a good time to hit a patch of form and hopefully we can keep it going."