Rage Online

A big build up, a massive Division IV crowd, and then that happens. That’s not in the usual script is it?

Ball on the floor, no defending a two nil lead, hard to pick a man of the match on account of all the team playing so well, and even the TVs in the concourses are working. Then to top it all off ‘Ken’ came on RadOx while I was driving home and announced he was going to commit Hara-kiri as part of the half time entertainment at Macclesfield next Saturday. *

At last everything clicks into place. Can’t wait for the 25th of this month when the most crippled team in our League come to visit Us.

* Ok, so that’s a slight exaggeration of the facts.

We had new flat screen tvs in the East Stand concourse too (I assume you are still North Stand).

Even at 2-0 up, I was still worried they would get one back, and then push on.

Nice to see a good home win, especially one that can be enjoyed for the last 6 minutes instead of chewing your fingernails.

New flat screen in SSU as well.

Excellent game and no complaints about anything whatsoever. Everyone contributed well, goals were well taken, we defended pretty well, passed well, movement was good.

And this was against a Rovers side who were also there to play football to a good standard. We were simply the better side.

Long may it continue.

Easily the best performance of the season. Hope this represents a new level, rather than a blip.

Weird to think that with a couple of results going our way we could be in the automatic spots next weekend.

Well done to Wilder and the boys.

Many (almost all?) commentators would agree that we play better against 'footballing' sides, or ones prepared to attack - and that this has been the case for several seasons.

If this is more than an impression, surely CW should take this very seriously, and formulate a strategy for beating 'park the bus' sides (eg. Hereford last season). Or put another way, why were Bristol Rovers stupid enough to try to play football yesterday?

At last we had some pace and width, hurrah!

&quotslappy&quot wrote:We had new flat screen tvs in the East Stand concourse too (I assume you are still North Stand).

Even at 2-0 up, I was still worried they would get one back, and then push on.

Nice to see a good home win, especially one that can be enjoyed for the last 6 minutes instead of chewing your fingernails.

I watch most games from the SSU these days (unless we are playing away)

I’m still trying to think about how much more perfect yesterday could have been. I even had to abandon my motor on the grass verge in the science park at half past two due to the traffic queues and when I walked back to it afterwards there was no ticket on it. Apparently all the stadium car parks were full by 15 minutes before kick off.

Shame we can’t play like that every week (or play Them every week). Maybe it’s just a Bristol Rovers thing as it’s always a hoot what with all the recent history (like Atkins and six one). When STFC play in a lower division than Us I hope they are still on our fixture list.

I used to dread 'big' games as we would almost always lose but a trait of the Wilder era is that we always seem to win them now. Long may it continue.

I watch most games from the SSU these days (unless we are playing away)

What , even the Swansea games?

Agree with all of the comments.

CW has clearly made some good signings and as we all hoped it appears that we have better players than last season.

The 2 that I think will be critical this year are Duberry and Leven. Duberry has that experience but his legs have yet to go even at 35. More importantly for somebody who has played at a much higher level, he seems to really enjoy his football still and gives it his all. I reckon we are lucky to have him.

Leven adds that bit of class which is like golddust at this level.

It could of couse all go horribly wrong, but at the moment the signs are good.

Without wanting to bring everyone down, I didn't think we were very good in the first half and perhaps rather fortunate to be 1-0 up at half time. Rovers pressured well and made Duberry/Wright play more long ball than you'd normally want. Hall and Howarth struggled to have any impact and were it not for the excellent early save from Clarke it might have been different. However, we did look well organised and reasonably solid, a benefit of Wilder having apparently settled on his favoured midfield/defence combination.

The performance was the right way round this time compared to the last game I saw at home to Bradford, better to improve as the game goes on than get worse. Second half was a very good performance as the midfield took control and Rovers seemed to run out of steam.

Agree with Paul above, Duberry has added calmness to defence (plus we don't look like conceding from every single free kick any more) and Leven some much needed guile to midfield. I'll be interested to see how the team do in bad weather, on dodgy pitches, as we do rely on playing football to beat teams and we might not get the opportunity to do that in every game. The attacking set pieces still need work, Leven takes them well but it still seems a bit &quothope for the best&quot on occasions.

&quotIsaac&quot wrote:Without wanting to bring everyone down, I didn't think we were very good in the first half and perhaps rather fortunate to be 1-0 up at half time. Rovers pressured well and made Duberry/Wright play more long ball than you'd normally want. Hall and Howarth struggled to have any impact and were it not for the excellent early save from Clarke it might have been different. However, we did look well organised and reasonably solid, a benefit of Wilder having apparently settled on his favoured midfield/defence combination.

The performance was the right way round this time compared to the last game I saw at home to Bradford, better to improve as the game goes on than get worse. Second half was a very good performance as the midfield took control and Rovers seemed to run out of steam.

Agree with Paul above, Duberry has added calmness to defence (plus we don't look like conceding from every single free kick any more) and Leven some much needed guile to midfield. I'll be interested to see how the team do in bad weather, on dodgy pitches, as we do rely on playing football to beat teams and we might not get the opportunity to do that in every game. The attacking set pieces still need work, Leven takes them well but it still seems a bit &quothope for the best&quot on occasions.

I think Ryan Clarke needs some praise for his improvement on free kicks this season: his setting up of walls and organisation of the defence in the box when defending them seems much better than two (or even one) season ago.

&quotIsaac&quot wrote:Without wanting to bring everyone down, I didn't think we were very good in the first half and perhaps rather fortunate to be 1-0 up at half time. Rovers pressured well and made Duberry/Wright play more long ball than you'd normally want. Hall and Howarth struggled to have any impact and were it not for the excellent early save from Clarke it might have been different. However, we did look well organised and reasonably solid, a benefit of Wilder having apparently settled on his favoured midfield/defence combination.

The performance was the right way round this time compared to the last game I saw at home to Bradford, better to improve as the game goes on than get worse. Second half was a very good performance as the midfield took control and Rovers seemed to run out of steam.

I think it's rather unfair to say that we were not very good in the first half. Yes, it was a very close half but it's all about winning the battle before being able to take control and win the game. Rovers came at us and we kept them out - that is the defence's job &amp they did it very well. (And yes if Clarkey had not been on top form we would have conceded.

The Rovers defence was not able to keep us out. I do, however, agree that Hall and Howarth had little impact in the first half.

I think it's significant that the tinker man has stopped excessively tinkering too.

Our current form is obviously superb, and hopefully the confidence that we've gained from this unbeaten run will give us a strong platform to build the season on.

I can't help wondering whether we've been really tested recently though? Our last six games were all ones that we would have hoped to win (including the two we didn't win), whereas our next six are (on paper at least, with the possible exception of Plymouth at home) rather tougher propositions. Indeed we've got quite a difficult run from now right up until the New Year. If we're still in the play-off positions (or better) on 3rd January we'll have done very well indeed...