Four days earlier Swindon were dumped out of the FA Cup in a second round replay at Notts County.
Swindon struggled to contain Bournemouth's extra pace and as an attacking force offered little except honest toil.
In a drab first half Bournemouth came closest to scoring in the 21st minute when Eddie Howe headed over from eight yards with goalkeeper Rhys Evans stranded off his line.
Swindon manager Andy King sent on Andy Nicholas at the start of the second half in place of Sammy Igoe and Bournemouth were soon ahead.
Wade Elliott broke clear down the right in the 51st minute and his low centre to the far post was met by O'Connor with a low right-foot shot into the corner of the net.
There was almost a second six minutes later when a lob from the edge of the area was turned over that bar at full stretch by the retreating keeper.
That was the signal for Swindon's best spell of the match and after 60 minutes they were level.
A centre from Brian Howard caused chaos in the Bournemouth defence and Sean O'Hanlon beat Neil Moss with a deliberately placed right-foot shot from 20 yards.
Swindon had Alan Reeves and Christian Roberts booked for fouls and referee Paul Taylor was forced to come off in the 72nd minute to be replaced by fourth official Stephen Tomlinson.
Bournemouth always looked the side most likely to snatch a winner and so it proved in the 72nd minute when Brian Stock took a corner on the left.
It was flicked on at the near post by Dani Rodrigues and in the chaos that followed Maher blasted home his first goal of the season with a left-foot shot.