FIRST AND FOREMOST.

How on Earth can anyone NOT be a Doncaster Rovers fan?

Sunday opitomised everything good about supporting this football club of ours. I talked a couple of months ago on here, about how there is the easy way to do things, the hard way to do things, and the Doncaster Rovers way to do things. And a cup final in Cardiff before a crowd of 60,000 people and a watching Sky TV audience was not about to change the way we go about our business.

Taking the lead after less than one minute, it was just disbelieving glee around us. Has that really happened? To be 2-0 up a few minutes later via the golden boot of Heffs was simply delirium unabound all around me. But how on Earth do you play the game after that preparation-obliterating burst of early goals?

Maybe you can continue attacking - strive for the third goal, put the game beyond doubt and enjoy the rest of the occassion in the sunshine. Alternatively, you can kill the game off by choking the oppositions attacking endeavours, retaining possession, that kind of thing.

The good ship Rovers plotted an entirely different course of action of course, never ones for navigating the traditional routes, the team proceeded to defend deeper than the Mariana Trench in an attempt to subjugate Bristol Rovers’ attempts to find a way back into the match via an array of last ditch tackles, headers and sundry blocking.

That’s not to say we didn’t have further chances to extend the lead. Every time we attacked we looked like we could score, whereas every time Bristol attacked, it floundered upon the rock that was the awesome Rovers rearguard. At least, that was the story for the first half. In the second half it took us all of about 15 minutes to chase away the two goal lead down the urinals, in a stream of steaming piss, worn-out urinal cakes and tab ends.

Doncaster fans were once again introduced to our old friend, “two apiece and extra-time”. Not before Heffs had streaked clean through on goal in the last minute of normal time - eliciting high-pitched cries of “please, PLEASE!” from the bloke stood next to me who was built in such a way that his girlish tones sounded as absurd as those West Country Bristolian accents. His manly aura was thusly restored as Heffernan lanced the ball wide of goal, with a simple, gruff illicitation of the words “orr fuck-bollocks” capturing the essence of the resulting mood in the North and East Stands of our opulent Welsh surroundings.

Still, all was well that ended well, and giddy memories of Stoke 2003 were evoked again as Graeme Lee steamed in with around 10 minutes of extra time remaining to authoritavely plant the ball into the back of the net. Get some of that down ya, thank you very much, that’s one Johnstones Paint Trophy sorted and heading up the motorway back to Doncaster … it looks a bit like the UEFA Cup actually.

So, to the heroes of the hour. Paul Heffernan is rapidly approaching legend status in Doncaster, and my first born - if it’s a boy - shall thusly be named “Heff”. Should I sire a girl, obviously I cannot adorn her with such an inappropriate appellation. It will have to be “Heffley”. Anyhow, ‘The Heffernator’ showed us all what we’ve been missing over the last few weeks with an awesome all round display over 120 minutes capped off by the kind of authoritative finish that has the likes of Michael Owen resorting to a series of angry wanks in the knowledge they can’t do that any more.

Sean Thornton was catapulted into the fray around the hour mark in replacement of the utterly destroyed Jason Price, with Copps pushed further up the pitch, and provided the kind of strength, balance and bite in midfield that we had been missing all of the first half. ‘Tarn Tarnton’ now deserves a long run in the side for the remainder of this season, his performances over 2007 have shown a new level of hunger and drive that most had previously decided just wasn’t there at all.

Finally to Jimmy O’Connor. A fantastic display up against one of the trickiest wingers Rovers have come up against in recent times, in Lewis Haldayne. Bristol’s attacking 442 approach meant the fullbacks were getting up and down the pitch with abandon, meaning he always had to be on his toes. Anyone who still thinks Cafu O’Connor is unable to defend in a manner befitting of a fullback, watch the tape through of Sundays game. I don’t need to justify him any further.

The lesson to be learned for Bristol - don’t fuck with the Irish Mafia.**

** Evidently James O’Connor is not actually Irish. He does however have his surname prefixed with the customary “O” and, for the purposes of this blog, can be considered as Irish as most Americans become on Saint Patricks Day, or indeed anyone who has an inate dislike for Snakes.

LOAD OF RUBBISH AREN’T THEY? I mean, telly is crap, car needs washing, sundry bollocks DIY jobs need amatuerishly tending to.

So what better way to gleefully jettison your duties on any given Sunday than by following the nefarious misadventures of South Yorkshires foremost footballing superpower, Doncaster Rovers in a Super Sunday, top-of-League-One, Clash of the Titans at the palacial surroundings of Boundary Park, Oldham?

As it turned out, quite a lot actually. Especially when said superpowers suffer a humiliating exposure of their difficencies akin to a backing tape becoming jammed at a Milli Vanilli concert aimed at raising funds towards scapegoating inauthentic musicians.

That Rovers offered as much attacking alacrity as a Frenchman in WWII was no surprise in itself, us being trimmed as we are of the mercurial Paul Heffernan has obliterated any hopes we might have once entertained of promotion for another season.

To see the assemblage of Rovers defenders abstain from their defensive duties with such reckless abandon did, admittedly, have me swearing obscenely and at not inconsiderable volume, despite my previous insistance that I was in cruise control until the FLT final in Cardiff. It is quite bad enough to muse that any opposition side possesing the wherewithall to score one goal against us in our current state is unlikely to lose the match. For our invertibrate attacking assemblage to then be juxtaposed by a similarly feckless collection of individuals masquerading as defenders doesn’t say much for the rest of our season to come, does it? And accepting four goal kickings with any kind of good grace is not a forte of mine.

Anyway, here’s the goals from that pathetic debacle, filmed in the exciting new “inverted-widescreen” format - for your viewing pleasure. To view in standard widescreen, please turn your monitor sideways. I’m off to put that shelf up and mow the lawn.

MAN ALIVE, a tedious Rovers-free weekend as mooted a few paragraphs down the page would certainly have been sweet.

With this “top of the table clash”, as labelled by Radio Sheffield on Friday (8th vs 9th in reality) , in doubt due to inclement weather conditions across the country, I was logged on to the Tranmere Rovers website awaiting the result of this mornings pitch inspection, Rovers shirt laid out and car engine running.

The estimable Graham Salisbury, match referee, took his first step towards ruining my day by declaring the pitch playable. The game was on.

The Rovers obsessives amongst this sites’ readership number may remember this officious little tapeworm and his contribution to our New Year’s Eve 2005 defeat at Rotherham, when he dismissed Paul Heffernan for an apparent “dive” after being chopped down in the penalty area en-route to goal. You may also remember he actually telephoned Doncaster Rovers after the event, and apologised for his defective decision-making on that day.

Any thoughts of Mr. Salisbury setting his record of buffonory straight in this match quickly disappeared like so many Millers at bill-settling time, as he first permitted Tranmere’s early goal to stand despite Gareth Taylor illegally scaling Graeme Lee to knock the ball down to the scorer Greenacre, then, shortly before half-time, he failed to send off McCready for hauling back Jason Price when the latter careered centrally towards the penalty area with only the goalkeeper to beat.

“Shall we read the rules for you!” roared the incumbents of the away end, and, I suppose in so much as Salisbury gave no further match turning decisions against us in the second half, that could be considered a minor success in a day of failings.

For without both Paul Heffernan and Mark McCammon, and with four of the starting eleven today playing under the influence of a mysterious virus (surely there were more than just four?), the midfield lacked bite and guile, and we were approximately as voracious as a sack of drowned weasels up front. Tranmere unconvincingly chugged and clomped their way to victory, with an ugly,two-footed lunge on Rovers’ own pariah to the Scousers, Sean Thornton, setting the high watermark in a match punctuated frequently by poor challenges and insipid long-ball football. The crap football side of things, we were happy to compete with. From a physical point of view, the players did not look interested, and the oppositions four bookings to our zero frankly tells it’s own story:

Rovers did not want to battle.

That Tranmere deserved the three points is of little positive reflection on them. Simply put, their play was slightly less offal-like than our own, and of course they benefitted from Salisbury sticking his oar in to their advantage. The lack of incisiveness evident the whole afternoon was summed up as Thornton who, laid into a shooting opportunity by James Coppinger , toe-wanged wastefully wide, to the obvious glee of the cauldron of Sean-hate that was Prenton Park - oh alright, a couple of hundred angry Scouse scroungers with a chip on their collective shoulders, la.

I notice Crewe had their match called off today. A stroke of good fortune for them ahead of their trip to The Keepmoat Stadium on Monday, against an apparently virus riddled Rovers side 48 hours withdrawn from the previous match …

Hopefully the backing of an anticipated 12,000+ gate will rouse a sufficiently congenial performance from aching bones to see us through to Cardiff and the outright Johnstones Paint Trophy final. It’s certainly no longer looking the straighforward task it seemed at 8.30pm two Tuesdays ago in South Cheshire.