George Cox revealed that practice made perfect for Swindon Town as he scored from the spot in the final moments to help them to a win over Colchester United.

Ahead of the New Year’s Day clash, Swindon had missed all four of their open-play penalties this season, including one in each of the previous two home games, as well as having missed two of their three spot kicks in the shoot-out defeat against Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup.

But after a handball in the box in the 98th minute, Cox stepped up to try his hand at what had been a consistent frustration for Swindon and buried his penalty to score the last-second winner.

After the game, he revealed that Swindon had been practising for this moment the day before the game and fortunately, that had paid off as he felt very confident stepping up to take the penalty.

He said: “I have been taking penalties since I was little at Brighton, so to be honest I have been wanting the last couple but usually the forwards get priority. Today I was like ‘I want this one’.

“We actually did a penalty shoot-out yesterday and I think we scored about 15 goals so I think that a few lads felt confident.

“I always take the same penalty in the same direction, so it is bread and butter really, I knew where I was going and I felt confident.

“You try not to think about it [the pressure], obviously there was a lot of pressure because the teams around us picked up quite a lot of results today but I was confident in myself and I knew that I would score.

“I honestly didn’t see [what happened for it to be given], I was just running straight for the ball as soon as he pointed to the spot.”

Ian Holloway also cited the preparation that had gone into ensuring the next penalty opportunity wasn’t squandered but he still felt a bit anxious when Cox stepped up because of the previous misfires from 12 yards.

He said: “I must admit that I couldn’t watch the penalty after what we had done, we were worse than England.

“George has grabbed it and we practised them yesterday and we scored 13 out of 13 and then the 14th one was missed.

“After that, I am thinking ‘Hang on a minute’ but I just let the crowd tell me that it went in, which was a wonderful feeling.”