Last Time Out
After the thrills and spills of New Year's day, Rovers delivered a lacklustre performance to eventually grab a win they hardly deserved against Colchester. Certainly for the first half, Rovers had been 2nd best but improved after the break. David Cotterill finally hit his 10th of the season with a characteristically spectacular solo effort and Colchester were left to rue that for all their good work, they only managed one shot on target compared with Rovers' five. In the end, that's the difference between top and bottom.
Dean Saunders perhaps spent a little more time watching the match than usual. Suddenly realizing how dire performances could be at the Keepmoat, he decided he'd seen enough and left to join Wolves taking Brian Carey and Mal Purchase with him! Fortunately, Rovers club management saw fit to recruit a ready made replacement, at least on an interim basis quite a while ago. Bryan Flynn is charged with the task of seamless transition to the post Saunders era, ably assisted by Rob Jones.
Dean Saunders perhaps spent a little more time watching the match than usual. Suddenly realizing how dire performances could be at the Keepmoat, he decided he'd seen enough and left to join Wolves taking Brian Carey and Mal Purchase with him! Fortunately, Rovers club management saw fit to recruit a ready made replacement, at least on an interim basis quite a while ago. Bryan Flynn is charged with the task of seamless transition to the post Saunders era, ably assisted by Rob Jones.
Meanwhile....
Stevenage took maximum points away from the Alexandria Stadium, which isn't the easiest of things to do this season. They had to come back to do it as well as Crewe took the lead on 33 minutes with Chucks Aneke's first time shot from Pogba's cut back. It all changed for Stevenage after the break as they prevented the Railwaymen from shooting in the second half. On 55, leading scorer Lucas Akins made it 9 for the season finishing from 6 yards before the points were sealed on the hour by his strike partner Marcus Haber.
Akins goal was a bit scrappy but he looks a decent prospect. A good finisher with plenty of tricks, not least of which was the overhead-kick pass he used to play in Haber for the winner. The other Stevenage player who caught my eye was Gregg Tansey. He looked comfortable on the ball and can hit a free-kick.
Akins goal was a bit scrappy but he looks a decent prospect. A good finisher with plenty of tricks, not least of which was the overhead-kick pass he used to play in Haber for the winner. The other Stevenage player who caught my eye was Gregg Tansey. He looked comfortable on the ball and can hit a free-kick.
Earlier This Season...
At the Keepmoat, Rovers frustrated Stevenage by coming back to grab a point in a scrappy game. It was route 1 stuff for the majority of the first half with Stevenage taking a 16th minute lead through Oliver Risser.
Stevenage seemed to settle for that goal as Rovers stepped it up. In the 79th minute, Chris Brown grabbed an equalizer and set up a frenetic final 10 minutes. Stevenage held on though and it finished honours even.
The Season So Far
Well it started very well for 'Boro and they rose to a season-high second place in October. In fact it actually took until mid-October for Colchester to inflict their first league defeat. Losing has since become more of a habit with 'Boro losing four of their last 8, dropping briefly to a season-low 12th before last week's victory.
Like Rovers, Stevenage have proved to be a tougher proposition away from home. The question 'Boro fans will be looking to answer is whether that win last week was a flash in the pan or whether a temporary glitch has now been ironed out.
That good away record and poor home record has led to Stevenage actually performing slightly better than the Rovers away from home in the fixtures against the same opponents. At home in these fixtures, Donny have won 3 points more than Stevenage. Bizarre but true!
And so to the game...
Donny-History beckons for the team as avoiding defeat on Saturday will hand the team a club record of 12 matches unbeaten away from home. That table makes the prospects look good. Stevenage have been making it a little too easy for opponents to score against them at home especially of late. The predatory nature of Donny's forwards should take advantage of that, and if they do, away from home, nobody is better than Donny at making scoring goal difficult for the home team.
The goal distributions may tempt Rovers to start the match in positive fashion. Stevenage don't look to be the best of starters, while Rovers do well early on. But, after going behind early, Stevenage do look to get back into the game quickly, scoring most of their goals in the second 15 minutes of the match.
Rovers should also be aware that although 'Boro have been guilty of throwing away a few too many winning situations this season, they are the comeback kings of the division, picking up an impressive 14 points from losing situations.
From Donny, there's been a great show of confidence from Caretaker-Manager Bryan Flynn. We're the best team in the league and how nice it is to take charge of a club doing so well. At the same time, though respectful of Stevenage. Impressive and very organized were his words. As far as injuries are concerned, only Martin Woods at the moment and confirmed that Chris Brown is fine. Billy Paynter remains suspended.
Gary Smith was also predictably positive after the very good win at Crewe. He hailed a very positive performance, never mind the result at Alexandra Stadium and claimed the positivity from that result had been carried into training. Whilst accepting its no easy task, he's looking for his team to get after Doncaster. Nice - could be just what we want them to do!
Stevenage also are OK when it comes to injuries. Jon Ashton is the only player definitely out.
Chris Sarginson will take charge of the game refereeing the Rovers for the second time this season. On the first occasion, against Bury, he dismissed Bury captain Steven Schumacher but otherwise kept his cards in his pockets. His refereeing has been mainly split between the bottom two divisions of the football league where he awards and average two cards per game.
From Donny, there's been a great show of confidence from Caretaker-Manager Bryan Flynn. We're the best team in the league and how nice it is to take charge of a club doing so well. At the same time, though respectful of Stevenage. Impressive and very organized were his words. As far as injuries are concerned, only Martin Woods at the moment and confirmed that Chris Brown is fine. Billy Paynter remains suspended.
Gary Smith was also predictably positive after the very good win at Crewe. He hailed a very positive performance, never mind the result at Alexandra Stadium and claimed the positivity from that result had been carried into training. Whilst accepting its no easy task, he's looking for his team to get after Doncaster. Nice - could be just what we want them to do!
Stevenage also are OK when it comes to injuries. Jon Ashton is the only player definitely out.
Chris Sarginson will take charge of the game refereeing the Rovers for the second time this season. On the first occasion, against Bury, he dismissed Bury captain Steven Schumacher but otherwise kept his cards in his pockets. His refereeing has been mainly split between the bottom two divisions of the football league where he awards and average two cards per game.
Forum Corner
No prizes for guessing the major subject of conversation on the Rovers boards this week. The boards are full of speculation with everyone from Pep Guardiola to Flockton Grey getting a mention. Pep would be cool and why not? Rovers have probably gone managerless in one of the best positions any side has found themselves in this situation so its a promotion opportunity where a lot of the hard work has been done. Give him a sneaky E-Mail, it would be worth for th reply to frame and hang up in the Rovers' bar! As for Flockton, well the guy who suggested that really was flogging a dead horse (drum roll - cymbal crash)
On Stevenage's Boro' chat the first thread to attract my attention was "Ball Kicked". Come on 'Boro! For both of us the conference was years ago. Its been a long time since that was an achievement! The full entry reads "Ball Kicked" by Wasp today at 18:47. Well if a bloody wasp moved the ball, I wouldn't want to meet it on a dark night!
Apparently, 'Boro's players kick the balls in training so hard that they burst. Seriously, I just thought "Balls kicked" on a football forum was quite funny. Go into the thread and it gets better! Not much about the match though - just speculation about Gary Smith moving up North. He'll 'av to learn to talk reet if 'i duz!
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