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| MATCH REPORTS |
By John Burgum
DAVID D'Auria offered sympathy for the plight of his old club but those words of comfort were overshadowed by the obvious joy at putting one over on the team which let him go.
''It's the first time I've scored against Swansea since I left the Vetch. Obviously I'm pleased, but not too pleased because I've got a soft spot for my home club,'' said the Scunthorpe captain.
''I don't get any pleasure seeing Swansea struggling week in week out. They are a big club and I hope their fortunes change and they start climbing the table soon,'' he added.
Sincere sentiments from the midfielder Swansea released almost seven years ago when he had barely cut his first team teeth. D'Auria harbours no bitterness over what many felt was a premature departure and he has since made the most of his assets.
Swansea discovered how effective D'Auria has become. At a club where Swansea have not won for 21 years he was just about the most influential player in a game which again underlined the many failings of Third Division football.
Alan Cork recognised D'Auria's contribution. ''He sat just behind their two strikers and caused us a lot of problems,'' admitted the Swansea manager.
D'Auria's goal, his seventh of what may prove his final season at Glanford Park, brightened the rather dull proceedings. It was superbly crafted, executed skillfully and exposed the fragile Swansea hopes provided by successive wins over fellow strugglers Brighton and Hull.
Once Damian Lacey had committed himself to the tackle midway into the first half, wing back Steve Housham raced through unchallenged before D'Auria stole away from his marker to plant a header into the far corner of the net.
Goal No. 7 from a player who freely admits his form had dipped of late is not a bad return, but how on earth anyone barely 5ft 8in can get the better of three six-foot defenders is difficult to fathom.
All round it was rank bad defending and D'Auria made the most of Swansea's defensive uncertainty.
Despite a more positive second-half response, inspired by Nick Cusack after a mediocre opening, Swansea created very little to suggest that progress will shift from a snail's pace between now and May.
Perhaps it was expecting too much from teams clearly low on confidence to produce a rollercoaster ride of excitement at the home of Scunthorpe's theme park sponsors Pleasure Island.
Certainly it was not a pleasurable experience watching two struggling outfits produce plenty of effort and little else.
Poor was how the Swansea manager described his own team's performance, and when you counted the goal-scoring chances from both sides on the fingers of one hand it was easy to see his point.
''I was worried coming here after two straight wins because you tend to get a little over confident. We never really played or looked as if we were going to score. That was the main problem,'' said Cork.
''We may have had a lot of the game in the second half and we probably did not give them too many openings, but where were all the chances? I was disappointed because we did not create much and we had been shooting all week as well,'' he added.
New striker Julian Alsop had a reasonable debut but far too often the 6ft 4in target man did his best work with his back to the goal. Even when Lee Jenkins latched on to one of Alsop's many aerial winners Tony Bird was off target with his only chance of the match.
Swansea never really made the best use of Alsop, who could prove a handful if Swansea can find the supporting cast to deliver those crosses into the box.
It was left to the hard-working Jonathan Coates and substitute Dave O'Gorman to force the only two saves from Scunthorpe's debutant goalkeeper Tommy Evans.
Coates, on a run from halfway similar to the one which proved so successful against Hull, must have thought he had succeeded when Evans fumbled a shot which bounced awkwardly in front of him but he somehow managed to divert it for a corner.
Evans was the saviour again during Swansea's best period of pressure, turning O'Gorman's shot on to the post when it looked as if a point was possible.
While both goalkeepers had a relatively quiet time, Roger Freestone still had to make two important saves, one from D'Auria at point-blank range in the third minute and the other to deny top scorer Jamie Forrester.
A handful of direct shots after the interval never troubled Freestone, by which time the defenders in front of him had acquired rather more confidence.
But it's up front where Swansea really need to concentrate their effort this week. With home games against Darlington tomorrow night and Macclesfield on Saturday it's about time all that extra shooting practice started to pay off.
SCUNTHORPE (1) 1 SWANSEA (0) 0 Scunthorpe: Evans, Walsh, Housham (Eyre 46), Sertori, Wilcox, Hope, Walker, D'Auria, Marshall, Forrester, Calvo-Garcia. Unused: Ormondroyd, Woods. Booked: Walker, Calvo-Garcia. Goals: D'Auria 21. Swansea: Freestone, Lacey, Coates, Edwards, Walker, Bound, Cusack, Jenkins, Bird (Watkin 75), Allsop, Appleby (O'Gorman 66). Unused: Hartfield. Booked: Walker, Bird, Allsop. Attendance: 2,123. Referee: J P Robinson (Hull).
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