Rotherham United’s Assistant Manager Steve Agnew spoke to Radio Sheffield after the Millers loss away at Swindon Town saying that in terms of performance it was a ‘difficult game’ to assess.

Speaking in lieu of Head Coach Alex Bruce after he was dismissed in the final ten minutes of the game Steve said, ‘When you lose a player after three minutes tactically all the work you’ve done all week changes everything.

‘From then on I thought we were pretty well organised and there wasn’t much of a threat from Swindon. We thought we’d get to half-time at nil-nil and we could tactically change and adjust to what we feel could have least got us a point but then we concede which was a little bit unlucky as it took a deflection on the way in.

‘As a group we thought with eleven men on the pitch we’d get a positive result and we felt a result today would really start our season again. When we lost Jili we thought if we can defensively stay solid you always get a chance. We are a threat from set plays but the deflected goal sent us in one down but the lads stuck at it. We knew in the second half we’d run out of legs so we had to make changes. Mulls (Paul Mullin) ran his legs off up the top end of the pitch. Tom Bradshaw came on and was a handful. George Sebine did well he cut one back which dropped for Sonny Aljofree which could have been the equaliser and make it two-two. I thought Jayce Fitzgerald was terrific in midfield, what a good player he looked and without an extra player for ninety odd minutes of the game.

‘The biggest thing was that the supporters had travelled a long way so it was important that the players showed their appreciation going over to them and I think they knew that the lads had left everything out on the pitch. We’ve not got the result we wanted but it’s a case of sticking together and the connection between the players, and the supporters was evident to me today.

Although he didn’t say anything about the sending off of Jili Buyabu in the opening minutes Steve said there was disappointment about the red card for Dominic Iorfa who saw red just before his manager. ‘I think their full-back has a little bit of a ruffle up with him, nothing you’d expect him to respond to but from we what they are saying he’s rightly got a red card and that’s disappointing for the rest of the squad. Although we haven’t had the referee’s report yet from where the boy takes the free-kick the original foul was eight yards further back so would he score from the free-kick if it was further back? I don’t know.

‘Denzel Hall’s goal got us back in the game which was a mistake from their goalkeeper which Denzel finished off. And even though, at that stage, we had nine men you could see the belief from the players

‘Now we’ve got to dust ourselves down and get ready for the game on Tuesday night.’

And Alex Bruce’s red card?

‘Emotions run high and I think he kicked a bottle and apparently that is something that’s not permitted. There’s a lot of emotion with what we’re going through at the minute and he’s tried to control that emotion. We’ve had so many hits since we came here and as a coach I’ve never been through scenario’s week after week where everything seems to go against you.’

Injuries?

Joe Rafferty was helped from the pitch with an injury with Steve saying, ‘It’s his groin or his hip he’s not quite sure but he is sore and he’ll have to be assessed by the medical people. Joe’s an experienced pro and he knew right away that he had to come off. Hopefully, fingers crossed, it won’t be too bad