UniBond League Division One South
Watermead Lane, Loughborough
Saturday, 18th October 2008, 3.00pm
Rovers' Fail To Extinguish Dynamo's Light
Manager Gary Norton must be wondering how many black cats his team have run over as yet another game where they had most of the chances and possession went without a result.
Rovers started well with Gavin Saunders firing just wide after just 6 minutes and Jamie Barrett putting a header past the upright a minute later.
On 15 minutes both keepers made good blocks as the action swung from end to end. Rovers' keeper Simon Baldwin was first when he made a great block after Mike McLarnon had picked out Kriss Nurse with a through ball.
At the other end Matt Nurse also made a good block when Kevin Lock found himself one-on-one
A minute later Matt Nurse prevented Rovers taking the lead when he managed to get a fingertip to David Blenkinsopp's shot on the turn pushing the ball away for a corner.
Rovers were left to rue those misses as on 24 minutes Dynamo took the lead. Jamie Barrett was penalised for a perfectly well timed tackle on the left.
Karl Noble pushed the ball forward to Jose Moreira while the Rovers' defence dithered and the defender slung over a cross that took a wicked deflection off Sam Wilson and landed at the feet of Eugene Francis who didn't appear to know too much about it as he stuck out a leg to steer the ball into the net at the far post.
Rovers where not getting the decisions of the referee and when Barry Woolley appeared to get an elbow in the face the official only gave a free kick when a yellow card was certainly deserved.
The home side almost doubled their lead on the half hour but a shot cum cross from the right flew across the face of Rovers' goal with no one available to give the final touch.
Rovers had more chances to level just before the half time break. Lock had a decent strike blocked and Luke Edwards fired the rebound wide.
From a corner taken by Wilson, Woolley put a header wide and then on the whistle Barrett shot wide.
As the second half began Baldwin was in action making more good blocks from Noble and Francis.
Norton decided to make changes on 65 minutes with Mickey Lyons and Brian Woodall replacing Saunders and Lock.
Rovers won a corner taken by Edwards who picked out Woolley and the big defender struck a shot that was cleared off the line by Kevin Spriggs.
With Rovers pushing forward looking for a goal they were caught cold by a quick Dynamo break.
Kriss Nurse flew down the left and his cross field pass was inch perfect picking out Karl Brennan wide on the right. With the visitors having only two covering they were easily sliced open as the ball was played to Noble in the middle who comfortably beat Baldwin.
Baldwin did well to keep the score down making a fine save after Kriss Nurse had easily slipped the attention of both Miles Chamberlain and Jamie Hood.
Woolley was again unlucky to see his header from Edwards' cross go wide and the defender who had been pushed up front for the final few minutes by Norton was denied yet again this time when he got on the end of Hood's cross and his header saved by Matt Nurse.
Manager's View
"Someone must have annoyed the big man upstairs because we can't keep having this sort of luck. I've just said to the lads in the dressing room just keep going.
"It's easy for us to sit here and make excuses, the referee was poor this that and the other at the end of the day we've missed chances. We made chances but we missed them and if you don't put them away you don't win football matches.
"As much as we dominated the first period of the game it was almost a carbon copy of the other night.
"Loughborough have scored a half chance - great strike the guy has took it well he got across two or three people and stuck his foot out and it's gone in and I sat on the bench saying "this can't be happening again"
"We did play as well in the second half but we still had enough possession and domination and got the ball into the box plenty of times and it's not dropped for us today.
"Then they hit us on the break and I take some responsibility for the goal because I knew we were two on two at the back but we were chasing trying to get back in the game so I left it two at the back. We got caught on the break and they put the game into a little more comfort zone for them.
"But they kept going until the end and I cannot fault the effort and attitude of the majority of the lads out there today. There were one or two who were not at the races but some of the football we played in the first half was sublime but we are out there to score goals and we're not doing that at the moment.
"I left it right to last minute whether to start Barry Woolley or not but he was ready. My only concern was that he may be a little short of match fitness but he had a fantastic game and he gives us a lot of presence there and I thought we looked a little more stable at the back. There were one or two instances where his experience and composure got us out of situations.
"Towards the end of the game he's a great asset for us and he almost scored for us. He's got on the end of one or two. Obviously we loaded the box up and he got on the end of one or two headers but nothing's dropping for us and he's had a good ninety minutes for saying he's been out for so long so fingers crossed he's okay and we go onto Tuesday with Barry.
"Somebody has got this opinion that Jamie Barrett is my love child and Jamie Barrett will always be in my team but nothing could be further from the truth. He's in the side because he's a good player. I thought the last ten minutes he was out on the pitch he started getting a little bit wasteful with the ball but he's very versatile and can play anywhere.
"This myth that Jamie is one of my favourites and one of my mates is absolute rubbish. He's in the side because he deserves to be in the side in my opinion and my coaching staff's opinion.
"Miles Chamberlain has always been in my mind that should ever I need a full back he's the man for it and he's had a solid game today. With Dan Douglas leaving and Barry Woolley coming back at a similar time may have opened the door for Miles to have a regular slot there but that remains to be seen.
"Playing a team that's had a change of manager it's that old broken record again. We had this a few weeks ago against Salford but I'm struggling to get over today before I start thinking about Grantham.
"It's going to be tough one. They've just had a new manager Phil Starbuck who's vastly experienced and is a man I've got a lot of time and respect for and sod's law just before we play them they appoint a new manager so we've got to be ready and just worry about ourselves.
"Chris White's gone in there as his assistant and I wished Chris good luck the other day and Lee Mellon's also joined them but we've got a gentleman's agreement in how we've released both players without the seven day rule that neither player will take past on Tuesday but they will be scrapping away for the new manager so we've got to be ready for that and hope it's not a repeat of Salford.
"Because out of the run we're on at the moment we've played some good football apart from Salford where for ninety minutes we didn't get going.
"It's not a nice place to be at the moment. It's a lonely place but it's not as if we haven't been playing good football. I've been in this hole before where we've been really poor for a long run but something's got to change if we keep playing football like that.
"It's a surreal situation to be in with what's occurring off the pitch as well but that's no excuse whatsoever because the team of players in the dressing room are fully galvanised and really want to do well for the club on the pitch but at the moment it's not happening for us.
"You'd think the situation we're in there might be one or two splits in the dressing room or one or two little cliques developing but we win together, which isn't very often at the moment, and we lose together and that's nice to see. It's no comfort maybe a very small comfort but that's going to get us through.
"I said to the lads that if we keep playing football like that something is going to drop for us and we are going to spank a side soon. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later. I'd take a scrappy one-nil to be honest. It's nice to be playing some good football but I'd rather win football matches than play good football so it's a fine balance because in the past when we've won football matches supporters have criticised us for not playing attractive football so we are trying to get that fine balance.
"It would be nice to play nice football and win matches so we may have to go a little bit ugly at times and I'd take an ugly win at the moment. I'd snatch your hands off.
"The crossing today was better. We've worked on that in training and in the warm up we've worked on game specific shooting and crossing and it's started to pay dividends the unfortunate thing was we couldn't get anyone on the end of them. We couldn't get the ball in the net showing that desire to get across people. Loughborough defended very well and I'm standing here saying how well we played in the first half but Loughborough played well. They are a good side and they've come out with three points today and I was very impressed with their front two they worked very, very hard.
"We are not taking our chances at the moment and they did and that was the difference today."
