Swindon had three big chances in the first half, the best of which fell to Matty Virtue, but he diverted wide from six yards out, before Drinan failed to capitalise on a one-on-one, and Virtue dragged another effort wide.

The second half lacked the same goalmouth action, with the home side probably edging it, but neither side committed enough either way to win it.

Holloway said that although he believed that Swindon could have won the game, picking up four points on the road this week is big for the team.

He said: "We could have scored after two minutes with the best move of the game.

"I think we could have won the game, but we need to take our chances when we created them.

"But we looked like a good team; they're not a bad team, just things haven't been going for them and they showed that today.

"I thought we stood up to whatever they threw at us and it wasn't the exhilarating game that I wanted to see between two really good teams who could end up at the top of the table by the end of the season. I believe that will be the case.

"The shape looks like it is working for us; what a move, what a fantastic pull back, and Virtue could have had two or three today.

"We're growing into it, and that's four points out of the last six away from home, which is something that I would have killed for, wasn't it?

"Last Saturday, I would have probably gone and killed a mollusk to get four points out of six off the teams that we have played, because I felt the lads needed it."

Bristol Rovers provided a very physical test in this derby game, with Joe Quigley the focal point of their attack.

But Swindon picked up their first clean sheet since the opening day of the season, and Holloway was pleased to see that kind of fight from his players.

He said: "I think we really stood up to their physicality, and that is huge in the fourth division, and if they wouldn't have had the other injury, their other centre forward [Ellis Harrison], that would have been even more so.

"I thought we did really well, because if you were playing right centre back, then you've got to be the central one, it's pretty tough. It's a totally different role.

"We had Kaelan [Majekodunmi] doing that for the first time, Steph [Negru] has been outstanding at it.

"[James] Ball can play the right-hand side, and he did it really well today, so Kaelan, for a young kid, I thought he did excellent.

"We've kept a clean sheet, we could have scored some chances, but we didn't on the day, and our fans were great, they didn't stop singing.

"We look like we all believe we might be able to do this, and we didn't back down in a derby and that's really important."