Grant McCann hails ‘team performance’ as Doncaster ease to win over Sutton

Posted Sunday, October 15, 2023 by PA

Manager Grant McCann hailed his on-song Doncaster side as a collective after they swept past Sutton 4-1.

A Joe Ironside brace, including a penalty, plus strikes from Zain Westbrooke and Mo Faal secured the points, with Harry Smith netting a late consolation.

It was a third straight home league win for Doncaster and McCann feels there is even more to come from his side as they continue to climb the League Two table.

He said: “It was more of a team performance. Luke Molyneux was involved in all the goals for us but I think it was a team performance, which is really pleasing.

“We just want to keep building and improving. We’ve definitely turned a corner in how we play.

“It’s nice to win but the performances have been there for a long time. We’ve maybe not got the wins we’ve deserved.

“But we turned it around in this one. I thought we were excellent in the second half and could have scored more goals. We limited a team that scored four last week to not many attempts.

“There’s definitely things in there that we can learn from but there’s definite positives as well.

“We raised our game in the second half and got into good areas. We were maybe a bit softer than what I think we can be – I think we can be more clinical.”

Manager Matt Gray is relishing the prospect of time on the training ground with his players as he looks to ignite Sutton’s season.

Gray bemoaned a busy schedule hampering his ability to work with his squad but feels he will now have the opportunity to get some much-needed work into the group as they seek an about-turn in form.

“It’s the ninth game we’ve had in four weeks and I just feel that I haven’t had enough time to work with the lads because it’s been play, recover, play, recover,” Gray said.

“We need to get some training sessions into them. The schedule eases off slightly now so it flattens out and we can get some valuable work into them.”

Defeat at Doncaster was a 10th from 13 league matches this season and Gray was frustrated Sutton failed to build on their 4-0 win over Walsall, which was followed by a clean sheet in the EFL Trophy.

“It was a great performance last weekend, with a great result and we backed it up with another one in the week but it’s a disappointing result for us,” he said.

“We started well in the second half but the second goal comes from a cross that I’d expect us to deal with and it took the sting out of us.”