Magic Mooney rocks Robins with late leveller

9:21am Wednesday 27th September 2006

Wycombe 1 Swindon 1.

TOMMY Mooney headed a last-gasp equaliser to earn Wanderers a priceless point and deny his old club the chance to go to the top of the table.

The 35-year-old former Swindon hero rocked his former employers when he nodded in a dramatic late leveller four and a half minutes into stoppage time.

Boss Paul Lambert said: "He keeps on scoring vital goals. It was no more than he deserved. He took a lot of stick from the Swindon fans and deserved his goal. It was a brilliant header."

And in a week when Lambert has handed out new contracts to midfielders Matt Bloomfield and Sergio Torres, Lambert indicated that there will be a new deal waiting for his master marksman next season.

He "He is terrific for this football club and is a big, big player here. I would like to keep him and there are a number of other lads I would like to keep as well."

But even after Mooney snatched his seventh goal of the season, there was time for Wycombe to almost chuck it away as Swindon were denied a penalty when Scott Golbourne handled in his own box to leave Robins boss Dennis Wise fuming.

Even Lambert admitted he would have been disappointed with the decision had he been in Wise's position as the ball bounced up and hit Golbourne on the arm.

Wise said: "I thought t was a blatant penalty and I think everyone thought it was but the ref says he didn't see it.

"Andy D'Urso has never been one to give me too much over my whole career. He sent me off quite a few times. Maybe it would be a good idea if we never had him again."

The decision infuriated Swindon's fans who clashed with stewards as they tried to vent their anger at the referee.

Wanderers - who lost top scorer Jermaine Easter with a thigh injury after 28 minutes - looked as though they were heading for their second successive home defeat when they trailed to Michael Brownlie's neatly-taken 51st minute goal for the visitors.

Brownlie latched onto Christian Roberts' header to slam the ball low past Ricardo Batista to give Town reward for their 100 miles per hour up and at em style of football.

And, with the ungainly Wanderers reject Fola Onibuje causing the normally rock-solid Will Antwi all sorts of problems in defence, Swindon might have added to their lead.

Wanderers had plenty of play but apart from Easter's first half header which Town keeper Peter Brezovan somehow touched around his post, they did not create too much in the way of clear-cut opportunities with only Mooney testing the keeper and Chris Palmer dragging a shot well wide when well-placed.

But they kept plugging away and in the end there was no denying it was Mooney's night.

He took dog's abuse from the 1,500 Swindon fans packed behind the goal but silenced their jeers when he rose at the far post to emphatically head Kevin Betsy's delicious left wing cross into the back of the net.

Mooney said: "The Swindon fans created a fantastic atmosphere and whether they are singing about me or somebody else it doesn't make any difference to me.

"It is always special when you score against one of your old clubs and throughout my career every time I play against one of my old clubs in a home game I seem to score."

It was a massive goal for Wanderers and could turn out to be the most pivotal one in their season.

Blues have only played three of the top six sides this season - in Lincoln, Notts County and Swindon - and it would have been three straight defeats against them had it not been for Mooney's magic.

Lambert snapped angrily when that statistic was pointed out to him.

He said: "Don't ask me how significant this result is. There's only about three games gone and 400 left. Don't ask me until May how significant a result it is.

"Just let me enjoy a nice result because the lads have been great. They have given me everything they have got and that's the highest compliment I can give."

But Mooney was in no doubt about the importance of his goal.

He said: "It was vital that we got something out of the game. This point sustains our campaign. It would have been terrible to lose two home games in the space of a couple of days.

"Before the game we wanted to win it but when you go into injury time and you are a goal down you have to be happy to get a draw and it is no more than we deserved.

"We blew it on Saturday against Lincoln. We scored the first goal and then collapsed and we knew having lost to two of the better teams this season that we had to pick something out of the Swindon game and to do that gives us a lot of confidence going into the Accrington game on Saturday."

Having served Swindon and seven other clubs in his 17-year long career, Mooney is settled in Wycombe.

He said: "If the manager wants me to stay then I am more than happy to do so. I like the way things are going at this football club with the new manager and the fantastic people behind the scenes.

"They deserve success and hopefully we will be in the next division next season.

"I started in this division and I don't want to finish in it - promotion is a necessity."

Wycombe: Batista, Antwi, Williamson, Golbourne, Martin, Grant (Doherty 86), Bloomfield, Palmer, Betsy, Easter (Dixon 29), Mooney.

Subs Not Used: Young, Fernandez, Anya.

Booked: Doherty.

Goals: Mooney 90.

Swindon: Brezovan, Jack Smith, Vincent, Ifil, Williams, Monkhouse, Evans (Weston 46), Pook, Brownlie, Peacock (Roberts 13), Onibuje (Jutkiewicz 84).

Subs Not Used: Brown, Nicholas.

Booked: Evans, Pook.

Goals: Brownlie 51.

Attendance:: 6,090 (Swindon 1,596) Ref: A D'Urso (Essex).