Post by a more piratey game on Dec 19, 2015 20:31:37 GMT
After last night’s record December overnight temperature (a night-time low of 14 Celsius), it was again unseasonably warm for dressing up in long white beards, which made for a distinctly un-Christmassy feeling.
The Gas turned up in force though, over 600 out of a crowd of 1,800, many of them just around kick-off, and there was definitely some kind of festive spirit around. The fact that Daggers have plunged to near the bottom, and Rovers have been on the up, only added to it.
DC set up with Parkes, International Lockyear and J Clarke across the back, with Ledbitter and Browner setting up the Christmas tree at the sides. O Clarke, Sincs and Mans filled out the midfield, and Carrot Top Gaffney and Marvellous Matty at the front.
It was good to see Puddy start back in goal though. The loanees have done well enough overall, but anyone with his own song is worth a bit more in my book. I clarified with the bloke next to me whether he was fully fit yet, and he said he thought he was, having proved himself in a closed-doors game against Swindle, and we both went on to agree that we wouldn’t see Milds play in a Rovers shirt again.
Rovers started well, dominating the possession for the first 10 minutes, with Gaffney looking like the sort of line-leading player that we’ve wanted for a long time. We didn’t fashion much from it though, and the game started to drift a bit before their players started to find space when they had the ball. One move saw them pass it around our back line, and only a weak shot, stopped by Puddy with his foot, saved us from going behind from the first real chance of the match.
Parkes tried a couple of long passes along the ground into space, probably designed to let Gaffney use his pace to get past the two big lump but maybe leaden-footed centre backs, and one came off and one didn’t.
Sincs did his usual harrying, chasing and passing in the middle, and Taylor played one spectacular pass across the pitch which was a cut above anything else all afternoon in its vision, but neither side was getting much of an edge.
It carried on very evenly, with Gaffney and Leds rarely getting a touch, and was all a bit uneventful though not terrible. They had another good chance, and then Leds finally got the ball and skinned a couple of their guys in the box with a very silky move only for the resulting cross not to work out our way.
Leds was then, I think, fouled just outside their box and the training-ground freekick routine that worked so well a couple of weeks ago was deployed again – and with the same result! It really was quite confusing to know which side they were going for, and before we could work it out, Browner hit a pearler into the net. A deeply satisfying routine, and the fans got jollier as the players grew visibly in confidence for the rest of the half.
We were unable to add to it though, and 1-0 seemed about right at the break. Puddy had looked unspectacularly capable, though he had flubbed one kick from the ground a bit, and their goalie had shown some excellent distribution, but no one else had really stood out for me.
Early in the second half Puddy seemed to make a bit of a flub of another kick, after which he was replaced by Milds – demonstrating, probably, how much me and the bloke next to me know about football. Anyway, Milds came on and did well, including one very good example of the shot-stopping for which he’s probably best known, so maybe we’ll be seeing him again next week.
The ball was spending an awful lot of time in the air, to no-one’s advantage as far as I could see, and Sincs, who might have taken a knock late in the first half, was replaced by Gos, and then Bodin (whose face seemed ghostly white under the lights – maybe he could stop off for a sunbed in Essex before he comes home) came on for Leds – who might or might not be fully match fit now.
They also made some subs, although the difference meant nothing to me until Bus Pass Jamie Cureton came on with about half an hour left. I didn’t like the look of that at all, though he was applauded by lots of the Rovers fans as he came on, including me.
There was an odd few minutes when one of their forwards went down and stayed down on the edge of our box, seemingly for no reason, and while the ref stopped the game one of their players who was around the centre spot started getting all pushy-shovey with some of ours. I’ve no idea what it was all about, but then the police moved into one of the gangways where a group of Rovers fans, none of them in the first flush of youth, were getting agitated about something equally obscure. It seemed a very funny few minutes.
They’d played a cup replay in mid-week, against non-leaguers who took them to extra time, and we were hoping that their legs might struggle in the final quarter. That looked to be what happened, as in spite of playing plenty of hoofball Rovers managed to fashion several chances bang in front of the Gasheads.
First Taylor and Gaffney, who had sort-of reappeared in the game, passed it well and around the defence, only for Taylor to under-hit an easy pass which would have given Gaffney a tap-in.
A few minutes later, though, Taylor had it in their box as Gaffney rushed up to give him an option. Taylor shaped to shoot as the guy next to me shouted ‘he’s coming’, before holding it up and passing it to the arriving Gaffney who made no mistake with his shot. 2-0, Gaffney of the mark for Rovers, and we could all celebrate and relax a bit.
Just to put the icing on the cake, Bodin added a third around the 90 minute mark. It reminded me of a few seasons back when we got caned there, and they seemed to be able to ‘walk it into the net’ come the end, but I think that was more a reflection of them than of us.
Overall, I thought we played more poorly than I seen us play, with the ball having way too much snow on it, though we looked like a team that works well together and where players generally understand each other. Gaffney and Matty seem to have the beginnings of a partnership, Parkes again looked solid in defence, as did Lockyear, and Taylor again showed the class and Leds the flair which can I think continue to make a big difference for us.
Daggers weren’t as bad as the scoreline suggests, though there was a group of their fans campaigning to sack the manager by the end, and they worked hard and moved well at times but, as anyone with ‘Red’ in their name deserves, Christmas really didn’t bring them any presents today.
