PREVIEW: Forest Green Rovers vs Swindon Town

Swindon Town will have winger Donal McDermott available for the trip to Forest Green on Friday night, but defender Dion Conroy is out for the foreseeable future.

McDermott has missed the last three games, which has seen Swindon pick up two wins, through suspension, as he was sent off for a two-footed lunge during the 4-1 defeat at home to Barnet.

Conroy has injured his cruciate knee ligament and will be out for some time.

There is better news for Johnny Goddard and Kyle Knoyle though, who have both been passed fit. The latter will make his debut if he features.

Swindon go into the game in decent enough form, and have only lost once on the road so far this season, but Dave Flitcroft's men are yet to win back-to-back games under his stewardship.

Forest Green, meanwhile, have found life in the Football League difficult thus far and have just one win, a 4-3 victory at home to Yeovil, under their belts. Ex-Town boss Mark Cooper's side are currently on a five-match run without a win.

Rovers have four former Robins on their books, with Drissa Traore and Will Randall being two, but Fabien Robert and Jordan Simpson will not play as they are currently out on loan to Aldershot and Hungerford respectively.  

Since the match has been moved to a Friday night with a 19:45 kick-off time rather than Saturday, 3pm, the game is being shown live on Sky Sports.

Swindon have won just three of their last ten televised matches, however. They came against Charlton last season (3-0), Sheffield United in the 2015 play-off semi-final first-leg (2-1) and Town also beat Coventry 3-0 that same season.

Three draws came against Peterborough (2-2) and Eastleigh (1-1) in the league and the first round of the FA Cup last season, as well as that famous 5-5 against Sheffield United in the play-off semi-final second-leg.

Unfortunately, the majority are defeats as Town have lost to Wigan (4-1), Preston (4-0), Bristol City (3-0) and MK Dons (3-0) on the box in the last three seasons.

This will be the first ever league meeting between Swindon Town and Forest Green Rovers, but they have played once before, in the FA Cup.

On that occasion, back in December 2007, Swindon won the first-round tie at the County Ground 3-2 after Blair Sturrock scored an 88th-minute winner following earlier Swindon strikes from Jon-Paul McGovern and Hasney Aljofree.

Luke Norris could be key to any Swindon success at the New Lawn, as he has six goals in all competitions this season while Town will have to be wary of Christian Doidge who has four himself and got 21 last season as FGR gained promotion.