ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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It was frustrating to hear that our New Year game with Torquay was called off just 90 minutes before the kick-off. With all the rain coming down recently it was no surprise, and the major annoyance was that we were denied the chance to continue our rich vein of form. Yes, following hot on the heels of City's unbeaten run, Rovers have now stretched theirs to two and the games can't come quick enough. It is amazing what one result can do for you, and the determined triumph at Swansea boosted the crowd for last week's Boston match to an incredible eight and a half thousand. Now some of those would have been the casual festive fans who fancied an afternoon away from the in-laws, but nobody from the club would have been complaining with all that Christmas cash ringing through the tills. However, seven minutes in and most of us in the stands were complaining when Boston scored the opening goal in our second six-pointer in three days. Richard Logan has almost single-handedly sparked the League new boys into life since joining on loan from Ipswich at the end of November, and he had scored six goals in five starts for them up to the New Year. Again there was hesitancy in the defence and having charged down everything that moved against Swansea, we lapsed back into old habits to give Logan the space to turn and shoot home from inside the box. Regular watchers may have realised that it was the third successive game in which the visiting team had scored within the opening quarter of an hour at the Mem. In our first meeting with Rochdale in the FA Cup a month ago, Clive Platt raced through to score after just six minutes and then in the following match with Oxford United, Matthew Robinson needed just twelve minutes to put them in front. We have also been conceding too many just after half-time as well, and we let one in against Oxford, plus goals away at Rochdale in the replay and also at Cambridge when the fans would have still been finishing their Bovrils. We can only conclude that Rovers are awfully bad starters and need a lot of time to get going at the start of each half. Thankfully we cranked up the gas enough to pull something out of the Boston clash, and after pestering the referee with no less than three worthy penalty shouts, we finally struck lucky with the fourth when Vitalijs Astafjevs was hacked down with three minutes left. It was our sixth spot-kick of the season already, with Paul Tait missing the first, Wayne Carlisle converting the second and Grazioli scuffing the third before scoring the next two. With Graz looking on from the West Stand Enclosure due to a back injury, Carlisle kept up his 100% record from twelve yards by sending the keeper the wrong way. That was his second late penalty this season after levelling the scores at Scunthorpe in August, and he emulated that feat by drawing level once again to claim a vital point. One performance that merits a mention from last Saturday was that of Dave Gilroy, who was thrown on at half-time to replace the evidently knackered Bradley Allen. Seeing as Ray Graydon shied away from playing the youngster when we had people missing in attack during October, it was refreshing to see Gilroy given more than a few minutes to impress. Right from the kick-off you could see that he chasing after everything and putting himself in where it hurts, and fans will give a lot more time to a local lad when he is obviously trying his best, than to a loan player whose heart is not necessarily in it, and Gilroy's persistence nearly got him a goal only to be denied by the irritatingly good Paul Bastock in the Boston goal. The welcome news that he is signing a longer deal with the club will take a lot of pressure off him and hopefully enable him to prove that he is capable of winning a regular place in the starting line-up.
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