Rovers ‘deserve medals’ after nervy win – Coughlan

Posted Sunday, November 03, 2019 by PA

Bristol Rovers manager Graham Coughlan admitted he was left with a few more grey hairs after his side’s 2-1 victory at Rochdale.

The Pirates boss said watching his team repel Dale’s attempts to salvage a point from the contest was nervy viewing – but hailed the bravery and character of his players.

“I was all over the place in terms of my nerves in the second half!” he said.

“You saw the beauty of the system we play in the first half and the negative side of the system in the second.

“It was one of those dark, dingy, cold, wet winter days at Rochdale away and we knew we had to dig deep coming into the game and the spirit and character of the lads made me so proud – they deserve medals, they were brilliant.

“They go into trenches every week and what we lack in quality we make up for in heart, spirit and determination. It was a proper man’s performance, I am as proud as punch.

“We had a stonewall penalty in the first half, but in fairness to them they should have had one in the second half.

“But at half-time, 2-1 up, we said the next goal will be crucial. They went long and threw everything into the box but we repelled everything. And some of the saves from our goalkeeper belonged in the Premier League.”

Rovers took the lead from their first corner of the game eight minutes in, Liam Sercombe’s delivery headed back into the six-yard area by Tony Craig for Victor Adeboyejo to hook the ball past Jay Lynch in the Dale goal.

Lynch was left helpless again three minutes later when Michael Kelly’s cross was diverted past him by Dale defender Eoghan O’Connell.

Callum Camps pulled one back for the home side in the 43rd minute after Ollie Rathbone had touched down Luke Matheson’s cross, setting up a second-half onslaught from Dale who were frustrated several times by Rovers goalkeeper Anssi Jaakkola.

He pulled off fine saves to keep out Ian Henderson on a couple of occasions, Rekeil Pyke and Rathbone, who also saw a shot blocked by Craig as Dale’s appeals for a penalty were waved away by referee Martin Cox.

Rochdale boss Brian Barry-Murphy said: “We were relentless in the second half, we created a lot of chances from the kind of play that we worked on in training in the week and we just couldn’t find the final element of that, scoring goals.

“In the first half we had pretty good control but the main disappointment for us as a group was the fact that we were two goals down for no other reason than individual errors and one collective error.

“That’s the frustration. We need to work harder on that so that when we are in control of games we can turn it into dominance and not have to be chasing games.”