Joel Cotterill said that eradicating a blame culture which existed within Swindon Town has helped them turn their season around.

Swindon extended their unbeaten run in League Two to six matches despite Port Vale snatching a late point against them.

Cotterill scored one of the goals of the season in the second half to give Swindon the lead with a swerving effort from way out.

After the game, Cotterill was asked how he felt the team had tackled their tough start to the season and turned it around.

He said: "I just think that the togetherness that we have is massive.

"Obviously since Ian [Holloway] has come in, he is a big motivator and I think that we lacked that.

"We have got senior players in the group but I think that he has helped us massively in that regard.

"We sat down as a group and had a chat for a few hours about what was going wrong and what we could do better.

"Obviously we needed to get the wins to get ourselves out of the place that we were in.

"But I think it is the togetherness of the group and now everyone is together and everyone is learning off of each other, even the younger lads have had a massive boost in confidence because of the senior ones.

"Everyone is just encouraging each other, whereas before it would be kind of like a blame culture and getting that togetherness has been massive for the group.

"And then also before it was all about ball work, not much tactical work, but ever since he has come in it has been about both sides of the game.

"The understanding of what other people's roles are have helped us learn to adapt to help each other out in sticky situations.

"That tactical side of it is massive, especially in the second half of the season with us pushing for the playoffs, which I think we can definitely still go for."

Cotterill's delicious strike was his second in League Two this season and his first since the win over Newport county in September was some effort.

He was asked after the game whether he had ever hit a strike more sweetly than that.

He said: "No. I think that I am a good ball striker, so I just knew as soon as [Danny] Butterworth played the ball back to me, I knew I had space and I thought that I would hit it.

"As soon as it left my foot I thought it had a very good chance of working the 'keeper.

"It moved quite a lot and so it troubled the goalkeeper. I think it is the best shot I've hit in a long time.

"Growing up I have always worked on that technique because I know how hard it is for goalkeepers, they have told me that themselves.

"I thought as I was quite far out I would go for power and I have done well to keep it down."