Goals from Tommy Rowe and Josh Martin saw Doncaster Rovers defeat Crewe Alexandra at the Keepmoat Stadium yesterday, a result that saw the visitors become the first team officially relegated this season.
Manager David Artell made four changes to the starting 11 from Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at MK Dons with second-year scholar Lewis Billington making his debut at right-back, Billy Sass-Davies returned for his first start since early February while Bassala Sambou and Mika Mandron started up front as part of a front 3 with Chris Long. Out of the team went Travis Johnson, Zac Williams, Luke Murphy and Chris Porter with the latter two joined on the bench by Oli Finney and Sean Lawton.
The opening chance came in the 5th minute with Matt Smith forcing a save from Dave Richards before the Welsh keeper would make a great save from Doncaster captain Tommy Rowe a couple of minutes later. The first goal of the game came in the 10th minute with Rowe beating Richards from 25 yards out, his effort going into the bottom corner before Lundstram would deny Martin with a block later in the half.
The second half wouldn’t get any better for the Alex as Martin would double the scoring a couple of minutes after the break after a double save from Richards while it would take 77 minutes for the Alex to register a shot on target, Harper shooting straight at keeper Jonathan Mitchell.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex host AFC Wimbledon on Good Friday before travelling to Sheffield Wednesday the following Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
Finally, the capital R is next to the club’s name after a season where we can start looking forward to travelling to places like Crawley, Harrogate and Carlisle rather than the likes of the Stadium of Light, Hillsborough and Portland Road that we’ll have been this season.