Planet Swans ArchivesBrian Flynn was forced into one change from the side that defeated Rochdale last week, bringing Robinson back into midfield for the injured Martinez. There was a home debut for Daniel Nardiello and a return to the Vetch for Alan Tate – both on loan from Man Utd.
Freestone
Jenkins Tate Iriekpen Howard
Durkan Britton Wilson Robinson
Nardiello Nugent
Rovers started the brighter of the two sides and it became transparent that in winger Ryan Williams they have a good buy. Dwarf like but very quick appears to be the best description.
Izzy picked up a booking for hauling him down after ten minutes as the Swans were struggling to assert any authority on the game. Slowly though they started to come back into it with some fluent passing. Kieron Durkan was guilty of a couple of wasted cross opportunities when found in space and Nardiello and Nugent were being starved of any decent service as a result.
Leon Britton was back to making some runs but mostly to no result as the crowd, subdued for 7,500 people, wondered if it was to be another blank afternoon. Izzy almost made up for his booking by coming close in the first half but that was probably as good as it got for us with 0-0 at the break being exactly what the game really deserved.
Johnrose came on for Britton at the interval – presumably for a knock – moving Robinson into the centre of midfield and Johnrose to the left. Robbo certainly made an impact with plenty of running and chasing back for the ball something which we desperately missed first half. However, as the game wore on, the sight of football being played on the floor became more rare as the Swans started to resort to the long ball to Nugent – I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere before!
Nugent himself spurned a couple of good chances to shoot at goal in the second half as more of the game became played in the visitors half without the Swan really threatening to break the deadlock. Referee Andy D’Urso was also struggling to keep up with the play despite it not being frantic and a lesson for him tonight could be to look up the word ‘advantage’ in his referee’s handbook.
It was Robinson who had the best chance of the game as Nardiello burst into the penalty area and pulled the ball back to him. As he steadied himself it looked for all the world that he would open the scoring but a despairing dive from the covering defender deflected it away to safety.
Tate was booked with ten minutes to go – strangely to say the least as he was hauled down by a Rovers attacker who had clearly been watching the rugby world cup such was the ‘skill’ of his tackle. D’Urso saw it differently and awarded them the free kick and the yellow card to Tate.
As the game petered out into a tameless draw you start to reflect on nine points lost in the last four home games and wonder whatwe would have done in those had we been granted the chance of Martinez, Maylett and Trundle amongst others being fit.
Man of the match for me was Andy Robinson although the sponsors award went to Alan Tate. A very subdued afternoon at the Vetch and all we can hope is that we see some of the injured few back and fit again as soon as possible.
