Sky Bet League One
Saturday 21st September 2019
As games go, this was as comfortable as they come and the direction of the three points were never in doubt at any point after the goals.
Rovers rode their luck early on before James Coppinger and Kieran Sadlier netted in the space of less than 10 minutes towards the end of the first half. Darren Moore's side then collectively delivered a dominant and professional second half display where they 'shut up shop' and didn't seriously allow Peterborough to find a way back into proceedings.
If anything, by the end, Donny can probably count themselves unfortunate that they didn't add a third goal on a couple of occasions after the re-start.
So it was very comfortable - albeit without an emphatic scoreline!
It was a pleasant enough day in South Yorkshire and with Doncaster and Peterborough being just an hour apart thanks to the excellent LNER train service, the visitors had a decent following with around 2,000 of them packed into the North Stand.
Rovers created the first opening of the afternoon when Coppinger was afforded time and space inside the area and got on the end of a clever cut-back from Jon Taylor, but the eventual effort from the veteran was harmless and easy work for Posh 'keeper Christy Pym.
Ex-Posh men Sadlier and Taylor went close with speculative efforts as Donny continued to play on the front foot in the early minutes before Ivan Toney (who used to live in Doncaster) squandered a glorious opening when he hit the bar with a glancing header after Marcus Maddison's cross, before doing exactly the same from the rebound which fell kindly for him.
Toney soon went close again with a separate attempt and it has to be said that, despite looking promising going forward, Rovers were living dangerously at the back.
What was needed was a game-changing goal and it arrived on the half-hour mark when Coppinger got on the end of a cross and flicked a header into the net before running off to celebrate infront of the visiting fans.
Peterborough looked shell-shocked and offered very little over the next few minutes as boss Darren Ferguson frantically chewed gum and looked like a scalded cat on the sidelines - barking instructions to his players with a look of disappointment on his face.
Though Pym denied Taylor with a superb save, things got a whole lot worse for Ferguson's side as Sadlier doubled Rovers' advantage before the interval; escaping down the inside-right and eventually placing a shot into the bottom corner.
With Peterborough threatening to collapse, all Rovers needed to do was deliver a good defensive performance and they knew they'd get the points.
That's exactly what happened for the vast majority of the second half and had attempts by Coppinger, Ben Sheaf or Brad Halliday found the target, then Peterborough would have been completely out of sight.
Posh were having no joy - struggling to create inroads as good as Rovers were defending, and in spite of making all three changes (one of which saw Niall Mason subbed after a pretty drab individual display) and employing a 4-2-4 formation, the visitors rarely looked like they would ever find a goal to even give them a glimmer of hope.
The Posh did eventually get the ball in the net, though it was immediately ruled out due to offside, and despite Ferguson screaming for a spot-kick in injury-time, one (correctly) wasn't given - as was pointed out to the Scotsman by the visitors' match analyst, pitch-side, immediately after the final whistle.
Rovers also did a great job of running the clock down in the closing minutes using all the old tricks that were necessary and it was a very good performance.
Having heard about a few snippets of Ferguson's post-match interviews, the stand out quote seems to be: 'We made Doncaster look like Barcelona'.
I don't quite know what 'Fergie' is on with here, because in my view, Posh weren't that bad and certainly if Toney had put one of the chances away early on, then an altogether different game would have materialised. However, they didn't and the reality is once Coppinger and Sadlier had banged in the goals, Rovers made Peterborough look decidedly average.
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