There were four different scorers as a Swindon Town XI put in a dominant display to defeat Highworth Town 4-2 in a pre-season friendly.

Following on from a fabulous year for the academy, Town have begun their preparations for the new season and a team heavily made up of under-18s teams put in a convincing display at Highworth, with Liam Hutt, Dani Gonzalez, Joe Owiti, and Connor Britchford-Stanley getting on the scoresheet.

Sean Wood said that he was looking to test his side with matches against different types of teams during pre-season, beginning with a 7-0 victory over a Bracknell development team, before playing in front of a crowd at The Elms Recreation Ground and will then take on Stoke City under-18s this week, a Category 1 academy that plays in the Under-18 Premier League.

After playing 15 minutes for the first team at Southampton the previous day, Joel McGregor along with Redman Evans and two trialists were drafted into the team alongside the academy players for the game and they wasted no time in getting going.

Just two minutes into the match, George Alston found space to play in a low ball for Hutt to get on the end of and turn home and after surviving a few close shaves, Gonzalez turned home on the rebound after a defender had blocked a shot.

Owiti extended the lead to three before the break with a shot that deflected in off the goalkeeper before Britchford-Stanley slammed in a pearler from outside the area within 60 seconds of the restart after the team had been almost entirely changed at the break.

Luke Wheelan and Dan Grieve scored during the second 45 minutes to make the scoreline less one-sided with the senior side getting more into the match, but it had been a fine afternoon for the young Town side.

Speaking to club media about their pre-season preparations ahead of Highworth, Wood said: "We’ve looked to add some variety into the pre-season programme with men's teams, under-18s teams, local development teams, and Category 2 and Category 1 academies.

“That's important with our planning, that we make sure we add that variety into the programme.

"This Saturday's fixture against a men's team will bring some different challenges physically, along with playing alongside the younger first-team professionals and then on Friday when we play Stoke, that'll be another challenge, but something that we'll look forward to.”