Tonight

[Thorney]

Did what was needed in those awful conditions.
Was never going to be a spectacle in the piss pouring rain.
Think grant will be nore than happy.

3 points and a clean sheet against a play off contender who before kick off were 3 points above us. Job done.

[Chris Black come back]

Grimsby got an excellent win tonight away at top of table Gillingham.

[Thorney]

Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

[dknward2]

Other results mean we are still only 3 points behind top of the table after a poor run of form, hopefully tonight is the game that gets us back on track

[roversdude]

Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

Sorry for being pedantic Walsall were at home so even better result for Fleetwood

[Thorney]

Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

Sorry for being pedantic Walsall were at home so even better result for Fleetwood

Yea just seen on ssn. Even better then

[Filo]

Decent performance that in tricky conditions, apart from the 2 or 3 minute brain fart in the second half

[Guernsey Exile]

Bradford only drawing at lowley morcambe and a walsall being tonked at fleetwood.
Think results been good tonight

First thing I thought too. A very good set of results for us tonight

[sedwardsdrfc]

Take that every day. Also for me stick with Olowu and McGarth from now on.

[steve@dcfd]

Take that every day. Also for me stick with Olowu and McGarth from now on.

Bailey playing in the deep
Lying midfield role and dropping into a three when we had the ball made the difference.

[NickDRFC]

Big win and delighted with that but think we still need big improvements. Biggest positives were the defence (this should be our first choice centre half pairing), the energy in central midfield, Gibson’s cameo (there’s a player there, just want to see more of it) and thought Bailey looked better when he was essentially playing at the back in the 2nd half. But overall thought we looked very low on quality in the first half (maybe the conditions played a part, but we look much more assured with Moly and probably Westbrooke in the team), I’m struggling to see what Sbarra adds (very lightweight but yet to see much quality on the ball either), Hurst still looks well off it and I really didn’t like the 10 minute spell in the 2nd half where we totally switched off and downed tools.

Really important to get the win, though, and despite some fine efforts at self-sabotage Barrow never really looked like scoring.

[jmt23]

McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game

[roversdude]

McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game

Unfortunately we lose him again after the Grimsby game

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.

[scawsby steve]

Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.

Sorry to be pedantic, BFYP, but we've beaten 2 of the top 7 at home, and 1 away.

[StocksArmy]

Kelly, Clifton, Sharp, Olowu and McGrath were brilliant tonight. Played really well in parts and played woefully in parts in difficult conditions. Win on Saturday and we are back on track with big players coming back from injury.

[Barmby Rover]

Satisfactory, but could do better I think will be the McCann rating. Rovers didn't make dominance count enough with shots on goal, but you can't grumble at 3 points on an awful wet Tuesday night, when you're playing what was third place opposition.

[steve@dcfd]

Kelly, Clifton, Sharp, Olowu and McGrath were brilliant tonight. Played really well in parts and played woefully in parts in difficult conditions. Win on Saturday and we are back on track with big players coming back from injury.

You’ve missed the player that made the difference for the first time this season Bailey played the deeper role. And dropped into a three when we had the ball he covered across the back. He allowed Kelly to try and get forward and Clifton playing forward he was the difference. Without Close there we were far better GM doesn’t make many mistakes but playing Close there was wrong

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Point to note, Barrow are 4th in the table.  We've beaten 3 of the top 7 at home now without really clicking.  The only way we don't succeed is beating ourselves. We should have been 3 up easily tonight.

Sorry to be pedantic, BFYP, but we've beaten 2 of the top 7 at home, and 1 away.

That's true, you'd think I'd know given I was at all three.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

[GazLaz]

Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.

[steve@dcfd]

Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.

They had several of their first eleven out injured this evening

[ForsolongaRover]

The statement that “The table doesn’t lie” is questionable at the moment.

Barrow were not even slightly impressive, yet they’d only conceded 3 goals before going to Gillingham and then Gillingham lose to Grimsby and Walsall get thrashed at home. Meanwhile, Chesterfield could only draw at Bromley conceding 2 goals in the process.

You might conclude that there is not much to choose between the best 12 or so of the clubs in L2.

 

[Campsall rover]

Top 3 will be Rovers, Notts County and Chesterfield imo.
Play offs will be Gillingham, Port Vale, MK Dons and Bradford City imo.


The cream will come to the top over 46 games.
No way will Barrow or Walsall be in the mix at the end of the season.
Yes I could be wrong but I do think those 7 along with Wimbledon who are the only other team I think have a chance of top 7 but their back log of fixtures could be a hindrance to them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Alright that. We've made a team in the top 3 look clearly second best. Not Copacabana football, but enough.

Barrow were rancid and won’t finish anywhere near the top three.

I didn't say they will finish top 3. I said they were a side in the top 3.
W5 D1 L2 before tonight suggests they aren't always as bad as they appeared tonight.

[Chris Black come back]

McGrath needs to stop with wanting to Hollywood pass every ball, he is soooo hell-bent on doing it, when the easy pass was always on - mix it up lad for goodness sake. He had another decent game apart from this annoying habit, as did Joe.

Strange 5 min spell in the second where I thought we were trying to give them the game, most players in that 5 mins gave the ball away, or gave hospital passes to teammates. Grant was hopping mad on the sidelines.

Patrick Kelly was my MOTM by a mile - he was enjoying himself and he looked a level above the opposition. How poor were Barrow tonight though? I expected a much tougher game

Unfortunately we lose him again after the Grimsby game

After that, he doesn’t have another international spell until March.

[GazLaz]

Told everyone about Fleetwood a few weeks ago. They are good. I’m on Notts County as well. Port Vale, Donny, Fleetwood, Notts County. Put the rest in the bin.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

We're slightly behind where we want to be towards the target of 2 pts per game average but last night was a big step in approaching the game in the right way.

With the midfield better organised, we've more chance of restricting the opposition while improving our chances.

 It doesn't matter where teams lie in the table, you can only beat what's in front of you. We're not going to romp every game, We're going to have to do what we did last night by working hard as a team for the whole 90 mins. If we can make teams look  'rancid' rather than us, we'll be there or thereabouts.

[Hickleton Rover]

I hope we and Barrow both finish well above Cooks Cheating Chesterfield olympic diving squad, it was a pleasure to see two teams trying to play football and not throwing themselves to the ground every time they felt someone at the back of them

[Pancho Regan]

I was surprised by how poor Barrow were last night. Even when we had a mad 10 minutes in the first half trying to gift them a goal, they couldn't take advantage.

There wasn't much to cheer up a dreadful night in that first half, other than Billy's brilliant flick which hit the bar and his superb cross after chasing a 'lost' ball to the by-line, only for Sbarra to put his header wide. Should have got that on target in my opinion.

So I felt at half time that we had seen two sides who didn't look like top-seven contenders, but then this is League 2 and the conditions were awful. 

The second half was much better from Rovers.
Olowu and McGrath made a very good CB pairing. Jay is going to be a really good player but as someone else mentioned, he needs to be a bit more careful with his tendency to try the spectacular pass. When they come off they are amazing, but his success rate last night was 3 out of 6, and handing possession to the other side 3 times could have been costly.
Having said that, you wouldn't want to stifle that out of him because the lad really has talent.

I thought Grant's substitutions worked brilliantly. Gibson looked like the player we saw at the beginning of the season and Kyle Hurst caused them problems which Sbarra hadn't, not least Kyle's work in the build-up to the goal (great cross by Sterry, that much-maligned player).

Yeboah did well I thought, but he and Sbarra didn't show enough to suggest they should start ahead of Hurst and Gibson, let alone Molyneaux when he's back.

All in all, an excellent and important win which puts us right back in the mix, helped by some good results elsewhere.
Let's hope we are back to winning ways and can push on again after our blips against Harrogate and Chesterfield.