Sports Round-Up 7 February 

Back for good: Cox in line for starting place

“Three points and only that,” was Maurice Malpas’ defiant message at today’s weekly press conference.

The Town boss declared that he is happy with the way things are going, but the team need to start winning games if they are to reach the play-off spot they so desperately want.

With Simon Cox now eligible for Saturday's visit to Huddersfield the manager now has a selection headache for the game. Along with Cox he also has Blair Sturrock and Moses Ashikodi fit for selection.

Craig Easton will miss the trip but is back in training and is hoping to be back in the reckoning for Tuesday’s game against local rivals Cheltenham Town.

The Scot also confirmed that all the ‘Best Holdings Trio’ had finalised their release from the club, but the boss doesn’t have any immediate plans to replace them with loan players.

“We definitely have the quality within the squad to reach the play-offs, but we just need to show the desire and have that little bit of luck as well,” said Malpas.

He also reiterated that Huddersfield wouldn’t be taken lightly, especially as they have a decent home record.

“We will take the game to them and see how they handle the pressure. The players have the belief, but it’s what happens when they cross the white line at 3pm on Saturday,” added Malpas.

New Boy: Simon Heal

Supermarine’s Jekyll and Hyde season continued with an impressive 1-0 victory against Hemel Hempstead on Saturday.

Ashley Edenborough’s 19th minute strike was enough to secure all three points for Marine over their higher placed opposition.

However the scoreline flattered the visitors, with Swindon having a number chances to seal a more emphatic victory, with Nathan Lightbody going closest when he struck the post late on.

The game also saw the debut of Simon Heal who signed for Marine on Friday, the former Cardiff City midfielder signed from League counterparts Yate Town.

Up next for Supermarine is a tough away trip to Rugby Town as they look to build on a performance that manager Mark Collier claimed to be "well chuffed with".

Fan's favourite: Joel Petkoff in action at the Link Centre

The Wildcats endured a difficult weekend of fixtures, suffering losses at the hands of the Slough Jets and the Guildford Flames.

Saturday saw the visit of the title- chasing Jets to the Link Centre, but with the Cats suffering from a number of injuries they were unable to take anything from the fixture, eventually losing 4-1.

Sunday saw the Cats travel to Guildford to face the Flames, unfortunately it wasn’t only the game they lost, as both John Wheaton and Tomas Janak picked up injuries to further compound coach Pete Russell's selection problems.

Despite goals from Joel Petkoff and Michael Farn the Cats went down 6-2 at the Spectrum.

Up and down: Howell in action in India

Despite the best possible start, it was a disappointing opening day for Howell at the Emmar – MGF Indian Masters.

The Swindon pro opened up with an impressive eagle 3 but quickly gave those shots back with bogies at the 2nd and the 4th.

His back nine got off to a bad start with a double bogey at the 10th but birdies at 14 and 15 looked to have got him back on track, however, another double at 16 took him back to +2 for his round and leaves him in a tie for 62nd.

With home favourite Jyoti Randhawa firing an impressive 65 (-7), Howell will have his work cut-out to make it a hat-trick of cuts made to start 2008.