Doncaster Rovers 0-2 Huddersfield Town

Doncaster Rovers 0-2 Huddersfield Town
Pre-Season Friendly
Wednesday 24th July 2019

Depending on whether one is an optimist or a pessimist, there will be differing views that supporters will have in the aftermath of tonight’s game at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Naturally negative folk will believe that Rovers were comfortably beaten by a better team, were played off the park and offered little going forward. They’ll probably also believe that Darren Moore needs a lot more playing personnel if the squad is to be ready for the season-opener against Gillingham in 10 days time.

Optimistic folk will recognise the hard-working performance of John Marquis and that the team created many openings - especially during the first half. They’ll also take comfort in the fact quite a few of the summer signings showed promise and that they’re capable of being a good asset.

The truth/reality probably lies somewhere between the two viewpoints and I’ve no doubt that Darren Moore and his new assistant will be analysing strengths, weaknesses, areas to improve/work on and further identify targets in the coming days.

Fans can get ‘hung up’ on pre-season results or carried away with them, depending on what they are, but ultimately friendlies count for absolutely nothing.

Teams sometimes go unbeaten in pre-season then struggle once the competitive games begin or vice-versa so my view, from experience, is just to let the manager get on with things and trust his decision-making.

Quicker decision-making, athleticism and being ‘cuter’ in possession is actually what won Huddersfield this encounter as they bagged a goal in each half.

Rajiv Van La Parra opened the scoring with a curling top-corner shot around the half-hour mark though both teams had seen chances come to pass prior to that, in what was a relatively open and entertaining game.

James Coppinger was then foiled by a diving save from Kamil Grabara, whilst Ben Sheaf made a last-ditch tackle at the other end just before the interval to prevent a tap-in - this after Van La Parra and Reece Brown had combined to launch a fluid attack down the right flank.

Rovers succumbed to a well-crafted set-piece routine early in the second half as Brown dinked the ball towards Juninho Bacuna who finished with aplomb from inside the area.

It was always going to be a long way back from this point and the task was made even greater, if not nigh on impossible, when Joe Wright ridiculously managed to get two yellow cards within the space of a couple of minutes to get himself sent-off.

He’ll now serve a ban and ultimately miss competitive games.

Therefore, the Rovers hierarchy would be well within their rights to throw the book at him and dish out a heavy fine as punishment.

It could be argued that the referee should have told the Rovers bench to substitute Wright to avoid him getting sent-off, but ultimately it’s not down to the officials to stop acts of idiocy and in the cold light of day, to get sent-off in a friendly is idiotic.

For the last half-hour, Rovers lacked any real punch or purpose going forward with Marquis cutting a pretty isolated figure despite the best efforts of substitute Will Longbottom.

Huddersfield continued to move the ball around well, as they did all game, and they’ll probably go back to West Yorkshire pleased with their night’s work.

Away from events on the pitch, it would be most welcoming at future games of this nature (certainly including the upcoming Checkatrade Trophy games) if the club didn’t herd folk like cattle into relatively small sections of the East Stand which the sun beats down on - especially when other areas of the ground, in the shade, remain closed.

Cash turnstiles to avoid excessive queues wouldn’t go amiss for games like this, either, regardless of which stands are open - and it would also prevent a repeat of the queues seen outside the ground before kick-off tonight.

I don’t expect things to change, however, as I’ve enough experience to know mega-rich club owners will go to great lengths to save a few quid on stewarding costs, even if it is to the great annoyance of their own fans who’ll always keep coming back for more.