Pre-Season Friendly
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Tuesday, 22nd July 2008, 7.30pm
Rovers Silence The Lions
Gresley Rovers went a long way to shrug off their recent poor performance against Mickleover Sports by beating Heanor Town at the Moat Ground.
Manager Gary Norton included Jake Moult in his starting line-up and chose to go with a back three.
Rovers started brightly and Moult could have made a great start on 14 minutes when Brian Woodall picked him out but the former Plymouth Argyle midfielder's shot was well blocked by Town keeper Dan Fenton.
The home side then had a couple of chances to take an early lead when first David Blenkinsopp curled a shot that missed the far post by inches and then a great free kick from Gavin Saunders was superbly grabbed by the keeper as the shot seemed destined for the top corner.
On 24 minutes Rovers did take the lead when a swift run down the right by Woodall, who then sent an inviting cross into the danger area. Blenkinsopp couldn't connect but Dan Douglas, who had made a clever run into the box, did and fired the ball into the net off the inside of the post.
Tom Liversage then went close firing just the wrong side of the upright but just a few minutes before the break Rovers were awarded a spot kick.
Douglas again made a good run into the area but was tripped and the referee didn't hesitate pointing to the spot. Blenkinsopp took charge but smashed his kick against the crossbar.
Rovers almost doubled their lead in spectacular style minutes into the second half. A Saunders corner from the left was partially cleared to the edge of the area where Woodhall's audacious bicycle kick left Fenton stranded but fractionally wide of the mark.
Heanor's clearest chance of the evening came on the hour when Liam Garner in acres of space met James Barker's corner but the free header went wide.
Norton made changes bringing Blenkinsopp off and pushing Barry Woolley up front and it soon paid dividends.
Within minutes of taking up his new role, the big defender was firing a shot wide and then he made a run into the area where he was tripped. However, the referee waited and Liversage rifled home the ball from 12 yards into the empty net.
Rovers could have greatly increased their tally during the last twenty minutes of the game.
Substitute Shaun Ridgway sent over a great cross which was met by Woolley whose powerful header was again pushed wide by Fenton.
From the resulting corner, Jamie Hood's header was cleared off the line by Lee Stevenson. Jamie Barrett also had a shot cleared off the line minutes later and after another good run into the area Woodhall had a shot blocked by a defender.
Oliver Hancock's cross from the left found Chris Sleath running into the right but somehow his shot went the wrong side of the post and Liam Bood also went close planting his header fractionally wide.
The final say, however, fell to the visitors when Paddy Smith's dipping shot seemed to deceive Rovers' keeper David Clarke and bounced off the top of the bar.
Manager's View
"It's difficult to draw any major conclusions from it because obviously it was a game against a side a couple of leagues below.
"Having said that it was a good work out and we haven't picked any injuries up. We won the game and kept a clean sheet. Arguably we could have won the game more convincingly in terms of the score line. We hit the bar with a penalty and had a couple cleared off the line and one or two other near things. I don't think Dave (Clarke) had too much to do.
"We are getting to the point now where we want a bit more from the players and that's what we've just been telling them. It's a warm down now then training on Thursday and then on to a game that for me has been earmarked as a bit of a bench mark against a side from our own standard.
"Games to date we've played Tamworth, who gave us a good lesson in both passing movement and finishing. On to the two games I missed, by all accounts the Rocester game was a very good performance especially in the second half contrasted by a deeply disappointing performance, as Steve (Hinks) said, against Mickleover Sports but both of those sides are a level below.
"As I said we are not going to draw too many conclusions from tonight; Saturday though which will be our bench mark to start from to see where we are.
"We have to be mindful of what that would look like (playing three centre backs) against sides in our league but it's something we've been wanting to look at all pre-season.
"Individually, on paper, the three concerned Barry Woolley, Jamie Hood and Miles Chamberlain are top-drawer central defenders and they've all played as parts of a back three before.
"We've been doing little bits of work to try and see how it pans out for us really because that could be an option we look at during the course of the season at times during games or specific games depending on the sides we're playing against or the tactics they use.
"We tried it a little bit against Tamworth but I think the communication wasn't quite there that night the three were thrown together but tonight it was a little bit better, more chat. I spoke to them individually before the game and as a three and there were signs tonight that it could be positive for us.
"Tonight we had to keep pulling ourselves back. No disrespect to our opposition but can we perform well against sides of our own standard or above?
"Playing three at the back is difficult but if we were training full time like some of the Conference North clubs and above do then you can work in detail in terms of patterns of play and get the players well educated and well briefed in terms of what we are going to do and where.
"It may be in certain games when we want to change things around; 4-4-2 to a three or whatever but we've definitely been a bit one dimensional in the last season or so. It's something we've wanted to work on this pre-season to give us options rather than go for a basic 4-4-2.
"A lot of sides that watch us will know that we've been based on a theme of 4-4-2 but we want to look at things that will give us a variation on that theme and we want to brief the players as much as we can during the limited amount of time we spend with them being semi-professional to try and get a couple of systems in and make the players comfortable with that so that when we use them they are comfortable with what we are asking them to do.
"It's difficult when you are playing a couple of games a week and you are only training once for just two hours - difficult, very difficult but all the teams at our level have the same problem.
"There'll be times when Barry Woolley plays up front for half an hour or so like today. There will be plenty of times when we throw Barry up front when we are chasing a game, hopefully not too many times when we are coming from behind. He's a handful up there and if we can load the box right. He showed tonight a bit of nimbleness for the second goal in terms of setting that up and he's going to cause problems for defences when we throw him up for set plays or as a forward.
"At the moment we are woefully short of quality forwards to work with. We brought Dave Blenkinsopp off because he was a little bit leggy, a little bit tired hopefully it's nothing too serious might be just a small virus or something. We are very limited forward wise and we wanted to look at as well.
"I thought the triallist James Moult did okay. He was fairly tidy, he once or twice gave the ball away a little bit cheaply but he's come into unfamiliar surrounding and he didn't know anyone before the kick off. He settled in fairly well - he's got a good pedigree, he's been released by Plymouth recently and he's a Stoke lad and he's looking to get into some professional football.
"He didn't do himself any harm tonight the time he was on the pitch. He picked a little bit of a dead leg up. We thought he was a little bit tired but he said he'd picked up a bit of a dead leg but hopefully we'll take another opportunity to have a look at him.
"We've got some great options. Picking our existing players I thought Gavin Saunders' passing was a big plus tonight. He played very well knitting things together as did Carl Slater when he played in that role. So there are some good options in the middle of the park within the existing players never mind the triallists.
"Both Lee Mellon and Robbie Banks will be back for the weekend. Lee's just arrived back from holiday so we gave him the night off but he'll do a bit of work on Thursday but he'll be available for Saturday. I'm not sure when Robbie is back this week but his first game will be the Bedworth game so we want to get him involved. He'll possibly start but he will certainly be involved for some of the game.
"Before he went on holiday he was a bright light in terms of pre-season training. He looked really fit, sharp and hopefully his holiday hasn't taken that edge off him.
"Tom (Groves) picked up a knee injury out running and we've got to try and establish how serious it is and also how long it will be before he's back in training. It's disappointing - it's the worst time of the season to pick an injury up and Tom won't thank me for saying this but he's one of those who needed more work in terms of his fitness. His class is there for all to see and if we can get him fit I generally believe he could play at a higher level."
