SWINDON Town defender Mathieu Baudry believes whichever team wins the physical battle in tonight’s League Two encounter between Richie Wellens’ side and Colchester United will likely emerge with the points as well.

The 31-year-old has accumulated 218 English Football League appearances in his 12 seasons as a professional and has pitted himself against a plethora of different strikers, with the latest pairing likely to come in the form of the sizeable Frank Nouble and Luke Norris – both ex-Town Alumni.

Baudry is looking forward to reacquainting himself with the two frontmen, having faced them several times before, and says that if he and defensive partner Dion Conroy can best the Colchester strikers, then Swindon will likely stretch their unbeaten run to five games.

Baudry said: “I’ve played against (Frank) Nouble and (Luke) Norris a few times before, so I know what they’re like.

“This league is physical, and you have to do the basics right first. It’s a battle first and once you’ve won that, your quality can shine through.

“We’ve got a good group of lads and the standards with the ball are pretty high.

“When you lose the ball here in training, you feel like a bit of an idiot because there are not a lot of people that are giving the ball away.

“The standard is really high and that is so good to be a part of.”

Town kept just their second clean sheet of the season on Saturday as they beat Macclesfield Town 3-0, with the first having come on the opening day in a 2-0 victory away at Scunthorpe United.

Baudry and co. have conceded a solitary goal in four of the six games in between, and the Frenchman revealed his frustration at not being able to add more clean sheets to their tally.

He said: “It’s been frustrating because before Saturday’s game, we hadn’t kept as many clean sheets as we felt we deserved.

“We haven’t conceded a lot of chances either – when you see games like Northampton where we’ve only conceded a goal that is offside and other than that, they haven’t had chances.

“That’s frustrating, but you know that if you keep on doing the right things, the clean sheets will come.”

Town fell to a crushing 3-0 loss against Colchester in the Carabao Cup back in August as forward Jerry Yates and manager Wellens were both dismissed in separate incidents on a sobering night for the club.

Since then, Wellens’ side have picked up 11 points from 15 in the league and Baudry is confident that more of the same from Town’s front four will aid them in their quest to make it 14 points from a possible 18.

He said: “It’s a joy to watch the forward players expressing themselves from the back and I have the best seat in the stadium for that.

“The boys are flying high in confidence at the moment and we’ve got to ride the wave because I’ve played long enough to know it’s not going to be like that all season.

“When it’s like this, you have to enjoy it and make sure it happens for as long as possible.”