ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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We were firmly put in our place last week as the comprehensive defeat to League Two leaders Scunthorpe showed that we are not good enough to challenge for top spot. Rovers have lost five league games to date and if you ignore the complacent reverse at lowly Cambridge, three of the other four to beat us sit in the top four - Orient, Swansea and Scunny. That gives a pretty conclusive indication that we are unlikely to be celebrating automatic promotion come the season's end, with a play-off place the most realistic target if we stick with the same squad of players. I've been amazed how the Iron have gone from Conference fodder to pacesetters in the space of a few months, without actually changing their team very much. Having said that, they have been regulars in the top half of the division in recent years and maybe last season's descent into freefall was more down to lack of confidence than anything else. Their team was certainly a lot bigger than us on Saturday with a full set of bruisers in the back four and a front two in Steve Torpey and Paul Hayes that were very hard to handle. However, this was not the first motley crew of giants we have come up against this season and the normally watertight home defence gifted two goals in as many minutes with basic marking errors at corners. The third goal was just as bad, as a long clearance from Scunthorpe's goalkeeper Paul Musselwhite sailed over the heads of our static back three, leaving Hayes with a simple tap-in. While a big physical presence upset us at both ends of the pitch, the dynamic United midfield was probably the key factor as they ran rings around Trollope and Hunt, while Craig Disley tried to forge a Rovers opening by pushing further and further forward in vain before injury forced his exit. When Jamie Forrester blazed over an open net after rounding Musselwhite in the last few minutes, it was not too much of a surprise because it was just one of those days when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We've had plenty of awful afternoons at the Mem in the last few years, so I was disappointed to see some people get so irate over what was our first home defeat of the season. It was not as if we had folded to a weak side like Kidderminster; instead we were simply beaten by the best. I expect the last thing we wanted to do on a Tuesday night was make an arduous trip up to Carlisle but it was our own fault for not holding on to a late lead in our first meeting. It was fortunate the team started out in good time because the coach broke down on the way, leaving them on the hard shoulder for two hours before a school bus turned up to take them the rest of the journey. Funny how the coach has never packed up going to Cheltenham or Swansea, but it was typical of our luck at the moment that the match then went on to last the full two hours into extra-time. This time we showed a lot more resilience and defensive organisation but the tactic of playing just Agogo up front lacked a bit of ambition without the likes of Disley or Gibb to link up from midfield. Like Ian Atkins said in the week, we have yet to find the right strike partner for Junior, yet it wouldn't do any harm to give some of them a run of matches without constantly chopping and changing each game.
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