LET IT NEVER be said that Sean O’Driscoll is not a man willing to make far-reaching mid-game changes in an attempt to wrest control of an important football match. Early match altering substitutions. Withdrawl of golden boy playing poorly. Wholesale tactical changes designed to break the enveloping stalemate.

None of these things were in evidence at the Keepmoat Stadium yesterday evening.

With said promotion clash against Yeovil Town heading inperceptably towards a tired goalless conclusion on a day where victory would have taken Doncaster Rovers into a play-off position for the first time this season, it’s followers were conscripted to once again witness the club press to their lips to the fine wine of a serious promotion charge, only to spill the contents of the silver challace embarrasingly down the front of their trousers.

Of course, there were mitigating factors to the listless display of mediocrity last night. The team was shorn of the best finisher and best creative outlets we have available in the form of Heffernan and Coppinger. Yeovil rolled up to our opulent manor with nothing more in mind than collecting a point and retiring to their agrarian candle-lit hovels to pummace some apples for brewing ma’s homemade moonshine.

None of this adequately covers it though. We had to wait until less than 5 minutes from time before Sean O’Driscoll offered any type of counter thrust to try and shake a game that was playing itself out an inevitable stalemate. This eventual counter thrust was to withdraw two forwards in exchange for two midfielders, leaving us with no recognised strikers in the eleven. It’s difficult to conclude therefore what Sean wanted from the game, but it was hardly a balls out determination to grab those vital three points, having already gone through 85 minutes plus of posting approximately as much goalmouth menace as a small kitten playing with a ball of string.

Was Jon-Paul Pitman not worth a go? Even when we have no other strikers on the pitch, Sean still doesn’t want to play him, which rather begs the question of ‘what’s the fucking point in signing him’?

Ruminations of not quite as forceful a nature (just yet) can start being directed of “Hollywood” Brian Stock on recent performances. Passes from him last night were misplaced by such angles and co-ordinates as to apparently defy commonly applied laws of the space and time continuum. Tackles were made with all the heart of the Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz. To be quite frank, he should have been hauled off the pitch and replaced with Sean Thornton at the earliest twatting opportunity. This didn’t happen, and it was left to the improving Mark Wilson to carry the fight from midfield with an impressive display of tackling, passing and running.

Whats this? Drawing some actual positives from the game instead of moaning like an old woman - well, yes, actually.

It was great to see Sean McDaid back in Rovers colours and getting 90 minutes under his belt - at left back, where he is by far at his most effective. Aside from one instance in the first half where he let a Yeovil forward run in behind him, who proceeded to mis-kick the ball horrifically when in on goal, it was a solid return. Graeme Lee and Adam Lockwood continued the ‘looking solid’ theme, restricting Yeovil to, well, fuck all efforts on goal really, while Neil Sullivan calmly threw his cap on everything that came in his direction. After a patchy first half, Jimmy O’Connor turned in a good defensive and attacking display down the right flank, though missed interlinking with Copps on occassions. Jason Price worked hard again with little reward, and we were evidently suffering without both Heffernan and McCammon up top alongside him.

Strictly average fare from the remainder of those charged with the task of representing the Rovers, with no particular rapscallians on display. I don’t go along with the attempted villification of Lewis Guy’s performance that is doing the rounds amongst some today, he showed for the ball and tried to link play, but like many last night made wrong decisions with his final ball -our free kicks in and around the Yeovil area being a prime example, in that they invariably either failed to beat the first man or sailed limply into the opposition goalkeepers waiting arms.

A striker trades on goals though, and Rovers’ front line simply did not look like scoring them last night. We are all too well aware that Paul Heffernan is going to be laid up for weeks, so depending on the Mark McCammon injury situation, and looking ahead to the three tough away games we have on the horizon, we might just need to be picking up the phone to Bradford City and getting Bruce Dyer on a train back to the proper part of Yorkshire.

THERE WAS TO BE no Paul Heffernan hat-trick, there was to be no Sean O’Driscoll cavorting merrily across the pitch, as ruminated on in the column directly below this one.

There was Donblogs’ favourite son Neil Sullivan chipping in, as I speculated, with a welcome bout of masterful goalkeeping on his way to producing one of hopefully many Persil-sponsored Sheets of Cleanliness, as opposed to the piss-stained Sheets of Shame being produced (and doubtless, quickly bunged in the washing machine before anyone else got up next morning) by the erstwhile Ben Smith.

There was the restoration of Mark McCammon to the Rovers eleven too, but only in replacement of the limping Paul Heffernan about 5 minutes into proceedings on Saturday. Bollocks. Still, a surreptitiously off-side looking goal from Jason Price was enough to save the day. We’ll call that quits with the blatant off-side in the lead up to Swansea’s second goal last Saturday shall we, and worry about Heffs’ potential protracted absence another day.

Thusly, the pre-requisite 3 points from this fixture were procured, and, as virtually every other club in and around the play-offs contrives to piss away all of their hard work so for this season with a series of unlikely defeats to inconsequential mid-tempo opposition, we find ourselves once again stalking the stragglers at the back of the play-off herd like a sleek and proud African lion stalks wildebeest as they sweep majestically across the plains.

Only the play-off pack are less sweeping majestically, more staggering morosely about, looking in vain for a place to lay down and die. And the sleek, ominous silhouette of Doncaster Rovers is more an ageing, possibly flatulent lion, feeling a bit sick on occassions but lurching toward it’s destination.

Nevertheless, a win against Yeovil on Tuesday will see us lunge forth onto the slowest, most fetid of the play-off backmarkers (the wildebeest with the scouse accent) and administer some natural jaws to throat justice, just as Mother Nature and the food chain dictates we must.

And I think Mother Nature is a symbol we can all get behind, yes?

HERE WE ARE, two days removed from the latest defensive surrender at Crewe, one day removed from the first day of general sale for tickets to the Football League Trophy final in Cardiff. It’s a long time in football terms. My disappointment has quelled, and I’m now serenely(!) looking forward to the Port Vale match on Satdi afternoon.

I tried to get some tickets for the Millennium Stadium yesterday. I’m not really sure why I didn’t buy them last week, other than a vague assertion that I wanted to sit behind the goal in the North Stand and the initial batch of tickets released seemed to be intent on plonking me in the corner, just as I was at Stoke many years ago.

Anyhow, it didn’t really work out. I drifted over to the Keepmoat at about 10am, with the queue already stretching into and then out of the stadium concourse again and outside. My own fault, I couldn’t be arsed to go any earlier and felt obliged to show my face in work for a bit before I sloped off.

After moving approximately ten yards in one hour and 10 minutes (a turn of speed not too dissimilar to that of Carl Alford, some of you might recall), and listening to all sorts of exaggerated tales of people being forced to write out forms containing their entire address history for the last 10 years - in virgins’ blood, of queues snaking out on to the hallowed Keepmoat pitch itself, I walked away.

Some Rovers fan me, eh? Can’t even be arsed to queue for six hours plus for a ticket to a match for which we will end up with thousands going spare.

So to Saturday and Port Vale. Once again the Official website, that bastion of “if it’s not official, it’s not news”-dom, is being a bit tardy with it’s updates, so we can only assume there are none, and no team news to report. So I might as well make some stuff up, no?

The official Patron Saint of Donblog, Neil Sullivan, will make his long awaited Keepmoat Stadium debut in front of the incumbent hordes and dazzle with a glittering display of calm, authoritative goalkeepery. Mark McCammon will make a league return to the starting eleven and monster the Valiants defence into such complicity that they will have no option but to fall to a Paul Heffernan hat-trick.

Sean O’Driscoll will evoke memories of a 1983-esque David Pleat at the full-time whistle as he embarks upon a demented celebratory sprint across the pitch in a pastel coloured suit and wing-tipped cream brogues, leaping about like a graceless gazelle, fists pumping the air. Unlikely defeats for sundry play-off rivals shall leave us right back in the promotion shake up.

I CAN just keep recycling the previous ones, eh? Two MORE goals shipped last night at Crewe saw us stumble apologetically to defeat and serve to further blat our rapidly receding promotion credentials - with one late goal in particular from some snivelling Cheshire arsehole akin to an unexpected punch right into the breadbasket, just as you have turned away from a fight that apparently no-one was going to win.

Our playoff hopes were left flapping about like a Bobby Charlton combover in high winds, as the Rovers trudged off the Gresty Road turf after a last minute defeat to find themselves a further point behind those 6th placed bemulleted car thieves from the Wirral.

Accordingly, the match against Port Vale on Saturday now assumes a mantle of such prodigious importance most recently associated with the signing of the Versailles treaty at the end of World War I. Hopefully Saturday’s encounter will see Vale reprise the shame and humiliation felt by Germans at the time, and er, goals from the boot of Paul Heffernan shall double as the mighty pen whose majestic strokes consigned said Germans to their fate.

Anyway, enough of all that bollocks - curse whoever presides over the Manager of the Month awards panel! Curse you Chris Kamara!

Even the return of the oft trumpeted (on these pages at least) Neil Sullivan between the sticks for Rovers, on loan from Leeds again, could not prevent the repeat of the two goal concession trick so wilfully performed recently by those bedecked in red and white hoops. Due to the fact I couldn’t make it to the game, I won’t sit here and apportion more scapegoatage in random directions, suffice to say, I’ll be queueing long and hard for a Milllennium Stadium ticket tomorrow, and I’ll be in my usual place Satdi as we fall two goals down to Port Vale. That being the case my mood isn’t likely to improve between now and after the weekend.

So that’s it for now. Perhaps there’ll be tales of witless tossers in the ticket queues tomorrow with which I can regail you - if something interesting does come up, you can read about it here first or, if not first, at least some days after the event.

OH LOOK - joy unbridled - we’ve shipped another two goals at the Keepmoat, as Swansea become the latest tawdry League One outfit to roll up to our feted new home, blast a few efforts past Ben Smith, and be on their way happily back down the motorway.

It’s all very well the likes of Paul Heffernan and Jason Price posting yet another herculean display of goalscoring, workrate, movement and all round balls-out passion for the Donny shirt apiece and being hailed by all and sundry in the stadium as some sorts of transcendal demi-gods, but as we all know, points are not awarded for astounding comebacks in the face of insermountable odds, nor for asthetically astonishing passages of interplay which almost lead to a goal, but not quite.

No. Points are awarded for winning games, and we’ve stopped doing that, just as we’ve managed to tug the proverbial knickers off of the play off places above us with our spectacular ball control and persistent nature an’ all.

I’m sure the absence of such lothario-like football was of little consequence to Scunthorpe supporters as they ground out a 1-0 win over hapless Rotherham to career off into the middle distance at the top of League One last Saturday. Whereas we were within striking distance of the M180 dimwits a few weeks ago when they visited Doncaster, we now trail by 14 points.

And so to briefly ruminate on Saturday’s events:

To say our new loan left-back Alan Wright has played in the top tier of English football, he looked entirely terrified by the prospect of that fat knacker Lee Trundle bearing down on him during the first half of Satdi’s encounter, such that I was all for him being humanely destroyed during the half-time interval, his twitching corpse dismembered and a wreath sent across to Neil Warnock.

Another Warnock loanee, Jonathan Forte, was briefly diagnosed as being clinically dead during the first half such was his lack of application - his condition was upgraded to alive shortly afterwards, when he was witnessed leaping out of the way of a 50/50 challenge that looked to be heading suspiciously in his direction. I appreciate the guy has been suffering, apparently pretty badly, from the flu virus that had done the rounds at the Keepmoat, but I don’t expect to see as heartless a display from him again in a Rovers shirt - lest I be forced into not insubstantial volumes of obscene swearing - the fella can do as he pleases once he’s back in a Blades shirt of course.

“Hollywood” Brian Stock - him being not for the want of trying the killer ball in the most unlikely of circumstances - and er, “Middlesbrough” Mark Wilson were somewhat perfunctory in the middle of the park, Wilson being marginally the better of the two but both were frankly overran by the agressive and direct running and passing of their Swansea counterparts, in the first half especially.

Just where is Kevin Horlock - he’d have been the perfect candidate for getting a bit shirty and chucking a few authoritative tackles about. Back to fitness quickly, what about ye Kev?

Neil Sullivan didn’t make the bench for Leeds on Saturday. Super Kev and Sulli into the Rovers starting eleven as soon as possible from my point of view please. Seeing Ben Smith almost get chipped for a second goal in the first half Satdi when he was but two yards off his goal line was rather disturbing.

And finally, didn’t I just fucking know “Baby” Bayo was going to do for us on Saturday. But it’s OK. I’ll cheer myself up by mindlessly monitoring the Rovers forums over the next few days trying to procure some Millennium Stadium tickets for behind the North Stand goal. I give it Wednesday ’til I’m on here ranting about that, and probably about Crewe once again being able to score several times against our defence despite us once again pissing them off the park in footballing terms. Yes, there’s a rather important League One game taking place at Gresty Road on Tuesday night.

Happy days!

HARD TO BELIEVE I know, but Rovers actually have a very important game to play tomorrow afternoon in the race for the playoffs, amid the ticket furore on the forums and corporate whoring taking place on the Rovers official website.

So er, lets try and find a bit of news ourselves eh? Sheffield United left-back Alan Wright has joined Donny on a one month loan to cover the injury sustained by Gareth Roberts on Monday in the Football League Trophy Northern final. Personally, this humble scribe feels Craig Nelthorpe did enough on Monday night to warrant a place in the starting line-up tomorrow, so, given both Roberts and McDaid are unavailable and Nelly is still overlooked, his prospects for the future at The Keepmoat look bleak.

On the plus side, positive noises are also being made on the recovery of the squad from the virus that swept through the camp last weekend - or, at least, less negative noises than “uurgh” and “hrulp!” are being made.

The SMC have sensibly relaxed the all ticket policy enforced on travelling Swansea supporters, who will now be able to pay on the day in Doncaster, hopefully encouraging a few hundred more to make the trip up the M5 to be amongst what should be a crowd in the region of, well, fuck knows how many actually, because ticket sales have not been updated on the Keepmoat website since February 9. Time a little limited for website updates now there are some Cup Final tickets to stiff people for, is it?

Anyhow, as the banner headline to this blog entry refers, Swansea are to be widely regarded as managerless Swansea, at least for the next couple of games. Are we to be doomed, after falling to the Manager of the Month curse with two straight defeats at the start of February, to now succumb to that other well known curse of the rudderless club be-lying recent impoverished form to conjure up the win that the previous manager was so desperate for? Will we also have the former player curse to contend with in the heavy-set form of “Baby” Bayo Akinfenwa ?

See you there.

SO HAVE we found the club anthem we have been sorely missing all these years? Have a listen and see what you think.

IT SEEMS that, since we became tenants incumbent of The Keepmoat Stadium, on-pitch business can be done one of three ways. Theres the easy way, the hard way, and finally, most sphincter-puckeringly, The Doncaster Rovers Way.

On Monday night, The Doncaster Rovers Way consisted of tried and tested Keepmoat traditions such as Rovers falling behind, in an undeserving fashion, and Rovers then in turn fighting back against such intemperate circumstance.

New twists on the original formula saw virtually the entire playing squad and management team struck down with a virus, and Rovers partake in an energy sapping game 48 hours removed whilst Crewe idly whiled away their Saturday necking afternoon cream cakes and playing wist by an open fire.

The rallying cry on the official website pre-match was a call to arms for Rovers supporters - albeit a call in places difficult for grown men to recall entirely comfortably, with overt and concerning references to “kicking ass” being made - but thusly the 12,000 + Doncaster fans in attendance offered lusty encouragement to their virus riddled heroes throughout most of the ninety minutes on Monday night.

Concerns over one or two of the players bearing an uncanny resemblance to recently exhumed corpses upon close inspection were heigtened after 35 minutes of general Rovers dominance as Crewe had managed to procure a two goal lead, generated by long periods of blasting the ball away from their own penalty area interspered with the rare foray over the halfway line.

As half time availed, and the Rovers players returned to the dressing room to imbibe copious amounts of Lemsip and Tunes, the situation was looking bleak. Surely we would tire as the game wore on and the aching heads and limbs pounded ever harder.

Of course, that isn’t the Doncaster Rovers Way at the Keepmoat, and we are all nothing if not sticklers for observing traditional customs. Accordingly, Paul Heffernan swivelled and shot into the South Stand goal just past the hour mark, and we were game on. A retaken penalty later and we were level, with about 9 minutes to play, Heffernan firing home his 18th goal of the season.

What followed embodied the transformed team we have been watching for the past few years. Jason Price, who had once again ran himself into the ground with a superb display of guts, skill and stamina, poked the ball beyond the goalkeeper and into the net for 3-2 with a penalty shootout but a couple of minutes away.

It’s brilliant. It’s unpredictable. It’s Doncaster Rovers.

Five Three! And you fucked it up!

bellowed the jubilant Rovers fans over at the sparse and previously mouthy following from Cheshire. who by now were streaming out of the ground like rats deserting a sinking ship, a ship that had maintained it’s bouyancy towards Cardiff via a combination of blocking, deflecting and heading the ball with various limbs into any path that was away from the goal they were defending. Some of the Sky pundits were making the point that people should feel sorry for Crewe. Well, I’m sorry alright, but Crewe can fuck right off. Despite our fatigue, despite playing 48 hours earlier while the opposition pissed about watching the scores come in on Soccer Saturday, we were the only ones interested in going out and playing like we wanted to win the game.

Crewe stemmed their nosebleeds sufficiently in the first half to score both times that they had the temerity to attack us. Bar one other passage of play early in the second half, their remit for the entirity of the game until they eventually went behind was to pack their defence with bodies and bludgeon the ball away at every opportunity. So for me they got exactly what they deserved, and best of all, they got it in the way which apportions the largest quantity of heartache and pain, conceeding a last minute winner. To quote Jack Nicholson in The Shining, ‘you get down here and take your medicine’, Crewe.

For us, a major final in front of a 50,000 gate now awaits. No longer shall we look back fondly(?) upon our serene ascendancy to recent non-descript cup finals in The Macmillan Trophy, or with even more shimmering prestige, the Sheffield knockabout Cup against such footballing luminaries as Emley FC. Get the hotels and train tickets booked. We are taking over Cardiff.

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.

BIG NEWS item of the day so far is the pitch inspection for the match at Tranmere tomorrow.

Having carried out some investigative journalism on the BBC Weather website, temperatures are set to stay above freezing in Birkenhead tonight and rise to a mighty 4°C tomorrow with sunshine and showers. The covers are down at Prenton Park, so fingers crossed. I’ll be hanging back in Donny til half 10 with eyes peering mournfully on teletext waiting for some good news.

Conversely, a cancellation could be good news, with the return match against Crewe in the Football League Trophy Northern final to come at the Keepmoat just two days later. The pitch at Tranmere looks to be in prime energy sapping condition, so the travelling multitudes would hardly be likely to bear witness to an electrifying match of slick passing football.

An otherwise interesting fixture list in League One tomorrow. Of the other teams on the top half of the table challenging for promotion, Carlisle face off against Yeovil, the Scunts head off to our good friends from Crewe Alexandra, Blackpool are off to Rotherham, and sixth-placed Swansea play host to leaders Oldham. And they can’t all go and win, can they?

In other news, Leeds have formally confirmed the loan transfer of Sam Hird on a 3 month loan spell.

Sam Hird has joined his hometown club Doncaster Rovers for a three-month loan transfer.

The 19-year-old, who can play at either centre-back or in midfield, will make the step up from reserve team football with United to the cut and thrust of League One at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Sam has been with the club since the age of nine and has played at all youth levels.

Last season he progressed from the under-18s to the reserves, and this term he has skippered the second string.

Academy boss Neil Thompson is hoping Sam will gain more experience from his loan move to Doncaster.

Sam becomes the second United player to join Rovers on loan this season after Neil Sullivan enjoyed a spell with the club late last year.

Personally I haven’t heard much of the lad. He will hopefully provide us with some strength in depth in the heart of the defence, where we have been light over the past few months, both in terms of numbers and the out-of-sorts performances currently being served up by Steve Roberts.