Doncaster boss Gary McSheffrey hails ‘old school’ display in MK Dons win

Gary McSheffrey praised his determined Doncaster side for their “old school” performance in the 1-0 win at promotion-chasing MK Dons which lifted them off the foot of Sky Bet League One.

Joe Dodoo’s second goal in as many matches was all that separated the sides at Stadium MK, with the forward curling home a fine finish four minutes before the break having seen an earlier effort kept out by Jamie Cumming.

The visitors dug in after the break and were indebted to Kyle Knoyle’s goal-line clearance with 10 minutes to play as Rovers held on to end a run of five straight league defeats.

“I had my heart in my mouth a bit at the end because we’ve not been in this position for a while,” McSheffrey said. “We defended great, cleared bits off the line and made lots of last-ditch challenges.

“You have to be able to do that when you come to places like this because they have so much pace in their front four and we had to be really organised.

“We’re not getting carried away but we’re happy to take it. We rode our luck at times and I think we’ve earned it.

“We got our noses in front today and had to be solid and be old school. We worked our socks off. We stood up as men today, shoulders up and chest out and got a well-deserved win.”

This was Doncaster’s first victory since McSheffrey was appointed permanently on December 29 and completed a day of two halves for the 39-year-old, for whom the morning got off to an ominous start.

“I feel like I’ve not been that lucky so far,” he said. “I stepped in dog poo on our morning walk at the hotel, so maybe my luck has changed now.

“The players have sensed it coming and upped their performances. They’re buying into what we’re doing.”

Dons boss Liam Manning rued a lack of ruthlessness following a damaging defeat for his side, who stay fifth.

“I think we created enough chances to win the match,” he said.

“We’ve got an extremely frustrated and disappointed dressing room. We totally dominated the game and the final bit just didn’t come off for us today.

“I can’t question the guys in terms of their attitude and if we continue to produce numbers like that we’ll win more games than we lose.

“It’s a disappointing goal to concede and it changed the game. It gave them something to hold onto and allowed them to sit on the edge of their box and defend, so it was disappointing.

“We’ve bounced back from results like this before, so we won’t get too low or too high. We’ll rest tomorrow and get back to it.”