UniBond League Division One South
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Monday, 25th August 2008, 3.00pm
Blenko's Double Get's The Points
Gresley Rovers rounded off a good Bank Holiday beating off the challenge of Willenhall Town although they did have to come back from a very early shock.
Manager Gary Norton was forced into more changes from the victorious side from Saturday's visit to Retford.
Already without the services of Jamie Hood & Mickey Lyons due to holidays, central defender Miles Chamberlain had to pull out of the squad with a foot injury.
Young defender Nathan Morris was drafted into the side with Dan Douglas partnering him at the heart of Rovers' defence and Jamie Barrett asked to fill the right back role.
Midfielder Lee Mellon came into fill the midfield role vacated by Barrett and Gavin Saunders given a start.
The reshuffle seemed to unsettle the side and Rovers didn't touch the ball from the kick off until keeper Nicky Scaife was picking the ball out of the net.
Just 40 seconds were on the clock when Brendan Kelly picked out Ashley Langford in space and the midfielder headed the ball into the area where Ross Harris was waiting to smash the ball past the helpless Scaife.
The home side did respond with Mellon forcing a save from Luke Tilt just minutes later.
However, Rovers were back on terms on 8 minutes. A long kick from Scaife was flicked on by Mellon sending David Blenkinsopp in on goal and the striker made no mistake firing the ball past the onrushing Tilt.
Rovers' second goal on 22 minutes came as a result of a calamitous mix up between defenders Scott Richards and Lucan Spittle. Both defenders went for the same ball and ended up colliding leaving Blenkinsopp to collect the ball.
Blenkinsopp saw that Tilt was a fraction off his line and sent an inch perfect first time shot over Tilt's head and into the top corner.
Four minutes later Town almost gifted the home side a third goal when a powerful header from Kelly was just grabbed by Tilt underneath his own bar.
Rovers were denied a goal when the raised flag of the assistant referee crossed off Mellon's header.
On the halftime whistle Blenkinsopp almost grabbed his third goal of the game when another flicked header from Mellon was helped on it's way by the striker only to have the ball deflected away for a corner.
Town had a couple of early chances in the second half with Harris firing wide and Joshua McKenzie shooting wide when he should have done much better.
The game seemed to fizzle out for large parts of the half but a superbly timed tackle from man-of-the-match Douglas denied Town a share of the points.
On 72 minutes, Harris managed to get in on goal and just as he was about to shoot Douglas managed to take the ball off his toe.
Hardly anymore chances arrived for either side as Town pressed forward but without really threatening and Rovers appeared to take the foot off the accelerator and just soaked up the pressure.
Manager's View
"To be fair, the ball went out to their left back and I don't think we touched it. I'm shouting off the bench for Ollie Hancock, who'd done as we asked him in that situation, to open his body shape out but their player hit a sweet diagonal ball, they headed it and it's gone right into the striker path and bang, goal and you're thinking 'right let's see what we are about'.
"There is a different confidence about the lads and it's very early in the season it's only the fourth game but there is a different confidence about the lads and when you concede that early I know what we've got in that dressing room, Tony and myself, and we were pleased with the result.
"Some of the football we played I think maybe we should have been more than two-one up at half time.
"I knew it was going to be a difficult second half. We've got two lads who have had hardly any pre-season come into the squad and we knew they would come at us and perhaps our fitness would show. But we managed to hold strong and resolute.
"We were organised and we kept our shape very well very, very similar to what we tried to do at Burton and Retford and we tried to make them break us down. They had one or two half chances but you could hardly say that the keeper was worked today.
"They didn't create too much but neither did we second half and we've got to work on that. The players we had out there and the fitness levels two key players in two positions, Lee Mellon and Nathan Morris, have come in and done an absolute massive shifts for us but for me head and shoulders for man-of-the-match Dan Douglas absolutely exceptional dropping in there - Mr Reliable - absolutely magnificent.
"You wouldn't have thought we were missing our three first choice centre halves - and that's no disrespect to Nathan he's just a couple of weeks behind everybody. He's been the subject of an approach by another club but when Miles (Chamberlain) rang me on Sunday morning saying he was struggling with a foot injury I thought 'here we go again!' but I spoke to Nathan yesterday and he accepted the challenge and has done well. It remains to be seen if he stays. I'd like to keep him here and he as shown today what he can do in both boxes. First half he's done a couple of lovely things up top there.
"But it was a victory for the squad today. We looked organised and we looked right up for the challenge and whenever they'd got their heads up they could see red shirts.
"Better sides and that's no disrespect to Willenhall, better footballing sides might have exposed us a little more but we've brought ourselves a little more time on the system we've been working on.
"We've been looking at ourselves honestly and if you go to the start of the season - what was it, eight or nine days ago? - Sheffield if we'd been organised like that talking and doing what we did very well at Burton and it's nothing new to us the system we were trying to play, Sheffield wouldn't have opened us up.
"We played as a group of individuals that day. The Rushall game we went two-none down and on the back of a big defeat on the opening day you are waiting to see what we've got against Rushall and we got ourselves back into it. .
"In the first game of the season our heads may have gone but remember we were missing Mickey Lyons, we were missing Jamie Hood and it's a big win for us.
"There's a new resoluteness a new belief. We're having to get on to them a lot but we make no apologies for that. We put Jordi Gough on again, he's trying to learn the system so it involves us getting on to the lads to keep them on their toes.
"Brian Woodall was put on the right side. When we haven't got the ball he's got to understand what we want him to do if we are going to be more solid and if we are going to be organised.
"We'll work at it and we'll work at it and if anybody doesn't come along with us then we'll get new players in but it was very pleasing today - a big victory for the squad. It wasn't pretty in the end but well deserved.
"We are trying to get the lads to play football and it takes a long time. There's a lot of debate going around as to whether people would rather see a scrappy one-nil and not really play too much football but we've got footballers in this side. It's a case of mixing it up and matching it to the right environment and the right conditions and there will be times when we've got to play ugly.
"Lee Mellon coming back in we saw for the first goal he's flicked one up for Blenko (David Blenkinsopp) and we saw today although he's not fully fit we saw that he can go in and break things up and be that little bit of steel we need.
"But if we get the ball down and play we're not a bad side. When we got the ball wide I was a bit disappointed with the delivery of our wide men today. In the first half when we did get the ball out wide we've got to make the delivery count. Robbie (Banks) and Ollie (Hancock) know that but we will try and play football when we can but there will be times when we've got to dig out ugly wins or ugly points but that's football.
"We are not going to over play. Perhaps the second half at Rushall we tried to walk the ball in the net but we've got to try and be a bit more direct at times. It is work in progress - it's a very young squad but we're pleased with the attitude around the place at the moment!
"Dave Blenkinsopp took his goals very well today especially the second one but that's what Dave's got. There was a shout from their manager saying 'they've only got one man' but we haven't we've got other players who can pop up but at the moment Dave's having a good spell, he's adapting well to the system and working hard and he's got himself two goals and if he'd really put his foot on the pedal in the first half he'd have got himself a hat trick.
"We felt he took his foot off a little bit and at times tried to overplay at times but he's come off and he's absolutely shattered but he's put a great shift in today and he's got the rest of the week to recuperate because we've got a huge game on Saturday in the FA Cup which we are trying to get people right for."
