Joey, what pleased you most about that win?
The way we dug in. We were certainly the better team for the first 25-30 minutes, got our goal and you just want that second goal to settle everybody down, I think it would have settled the stadium down and the players.
But we never managed to get that and it was always going to be hard-fought. Mark (Bonner) has got a really competent side there. They keep competing, they’ve come out of League Two and solidified in League One with 16 points on the board already and they’re well versed in what they do and they compete.
We knew it was going to be a tough afternoon and whichever way we managed to find the three points, if that was with a bit of panache and a bit of style, but in reality, we haven’t won in the league for eight games, 50 days. Well, ‘We haven’t won for 25 minutes’ will be the Bristol Post headline most probably.
We had to find a way of winning the game because winning breeds confidence. We’ve got a young group and I’ve said to you all the while that when players start to return, it will give us a real solid platform and you could see with the bench today, the changes we were able to make to shut the game down and make sure we got out of here with a well-earned three points.
How important was it for the fans who you’ve kept waiting for those three points?
Yeah, huge. Naturally, there is a bit of nervousness in the stadium because we haven’t been firing on all cylinders and knocking five-game unbeaten runs together, which is what you want to do.
As I’ve said to you in previous interviews, it’s up to us to feed the scoreboard and feed the crowd and I think when the players go out and compete and play the way they have today, yeah we can play better for sure, but I think the fans really appreciate this young group and how much they care for the quartered shirt and how much they put into it was epitomised for me today by Ryan Loft with the work rate and the amount of times he put his body on the line.
I know lots of other people like Josh Coburn and Luca Hoole might get the headlines for the goals, but there were some real team performances out there today. That wasn’t just the starting XI, it was the lads who came into the fray as well to finish the game off.
Josh Coburn, first start and a first goal. There is definitely something there, isn’t there?
Yeah. We had to show patience and belief in Josh in terms of waiting a month before taking him because of the injury, but he goes some way to paying that back today. I thought he was a real livewire up there with some really nice moments.
The more he trains and gets familiar with the group, he should find another few gears, but I’m really pleased. He’s off the mark and I thought it was great work from Aaron Collins.
Lots of goals for Azza but also the assists and the goal contributions and he’s becoming a real talisman of the team. He hasn’t trained all week because he had a bit of a problem and on Thursday it was touch and go whether he was going to make the game, but I was delighted when he gave the thumbs up yesterday and today you can see he’s got his tail up at the minute and he looks a real threat.
Do you think the international scouts are keeping an eye on him?
Most probably. If you’re in the Wales camp, you’ll be monitoring everybody who’s got a Welsh passport and is playing really well. It’ll be a bit of a long shot for him but who knows? You never know what’s around the corner.
For me, if he was English, he wouldn’t get in the England squad scoring in League One but there’s a good chance you’ll get in the Northern Ireland, Ireland or Wales or even Scotland squad, banging them in, in League One – that’s the reality of it.
He’s just got to keep doing the business for Bristol Rovers. He’s got to keep being a great team person and working his trollies off every single day and it’s only a matter of time before Aaron gets an international cap on the trajectory he’s currently on.
You’re getting most people back. Do you feel much happier now with the resources you have on a week-by-week basis?
Yeah, we know we’ve recruited a really good group here. It’s a young team and the frustrating thing for me is we have had a lot of injuries in a key area. It’s been tricky for me because you’re trying to navigate the start to a campaign without all the resources you would want available to you.
But now, you’re starting to see those guys returning to the fold and we’ve got Harry Anderson who will come in and factor, John Marquis, Alfie Kilgour and also James Connolly. You add that to the group I’ve got today and I’m going to have a real problem picking a matchday squad.
You look at Zain Westbrooke has been left out today and Glenn Whelan, I look at the training group that was running around the training ground when we first got in and that’s the first time in a long time that we’ve had that luxury.
Joey, there were shades of another lad from the North East with Josh Coburn in the first five minutes when he took a ball down, sprinted past two tackles and pushed one just wide. He is more than just a big man, isn’t he? He is a really cultured player.
You forget he’s only a young boy, he’s got lots of improvement to do, but you can see the raw materials he has, you can see why he’s factored for Middlesbrough in the Championship, you can see why he’s caused problems and you can also see why we were so keen to recruit him once we knew he was available.
The good thing for us and as any striker would want, the earlier you can get off the mark, the better. If that’s at the home stadium, even better. If that’s where all the mad barmy fans are who are going to sing your name and support you, even better.
I think Josh will be delighted. It was a really good finish and I think Az did superbly to get him in there. It was the front three combining. Ryan Loft plays the pass out to Az and then Josh gets on the end of the cross and gets the match-winner.
Until your second goal, it felt like it was following quite a familiar theme at home for you where you started pretty well and something knocked you out of your stride and the rest of the game is not quite as clean. How good was it to overcome that this time compared to the Morecambes, the Shrewsburys and the other games you’ve had?
I think that was the squad, Sam. I think the ability to put Paul Coutts into the game and Trevor Clarke and Luke McCormick and Sylvester Jasper and Lewis Gibson. You’re replacing quality with quality. That’s no disrespect to the lads who were in there before, but sometimes we weren’t able to make a sub because people weren’t right or we didn’t think the performance would be maintained.
Confidence is everything and we’re fully aware of the scraps we’ve had here, drawing games we felt we should have won, and there is no greater drug in football than winning games and getting that shot of confidence, especially when you’re in a young group and in a new league, and especially when you’ve got a passionate fanbase behind you.
I think that will do us the world of good, but I think that was built of Exeter last week. We had great away support and the lads dug in and got themselves back in the game late doors with the equaliser. That allowed us to take momentum into Tuesday night and win that comfortably and it allowed us to bring even more momentum into the stadium today.
I think confidence is that secret recipe that every single person in football cannot have enough of and that will go no end today to improving our lads’ confidence and helping us start kicking on now and driving up the table.
James Belshaw showed his character, didn’t he? Last week he had the error and today was one of those as a goalkeeper where you end up in a bad situation and give away the penalty. He responded really well with a good save after the penalty and some very good saves in the second half.
Yeah, and he’s a top-class keeper, Belly. We know that he’s a great shot-stopper. Unfortunately for keepers, like at Exeter if you get something wrong it tends to end up in the back of the net, so you get rewarded for doing all the things you should do as a goalie, but absolutely lambasted if you make a mistake and that is why it’s such a high-profile position.
But I don’t think anybody would question Belly’s quality based on him making one mistake last week because we all know, and we’ve seen again today, what a big player he is for us. He’s been massive since he came in and he was rightly voted player of the year last year. It’s very rare that a team gets promoted and a goalie is named player of the year, but his performances warranted that.
If we’re going to be successful here at Rovers, we need people can at some point, hopefully, gatecrash into Rovers’ all-time best XI. I think if Belly keeps playing at the level he does, I think when he leaves the club he will certainly put a challenge down. Nigel Martyn will probably take that at this moment, but I think the fans here appreciate what a big player Belly is.
A lot of the stuff he does in the community as well, he is a massive player for us. He’s a brilliant goalkeeper, but he’s a brilliant team person. He made some key saves today for us and that gives us the platform to win the game.
I’m not trying to get you into trouble, but you had a couple of players booked for simulation. The Coburn one was probably a bit more straightforward, but there seemed to be contact with the Collins one and it looked like a strange decision at the time. It’s one thing to not give the penalty, but did you think it was a dive?
We haven’t had a penalty all season and I’ve definitely seen a few moments that make me think they could have been penalties. First half, we felt there was an unnatural body position at least once, if not twice. There was the Lewis Gordon cross but also a shot from Azza and the lad run out with his hand locked high. That’s not a natural position.
I don’t want to be caning referees because we don’t get much off them as it is and I’m less likely to get more off them if I keep getting stuck into them. For me, the Azza one, there is contact. Is it simulation? I’m not sure.
If I was an outfield player now, I wouldn’t stay on my feet in the box. There’s just no point, you might as well, especially if you can’t get a shot away. You might as well bite the dust because referees can easily give penalties.
For me, I thought it was harsh. Josh Coburn, yeah, I could see why he’s booked him, but they don’t book (Joe) Ironside and I had the same with (Jack) Sparkes last week. He dives in the corner, left-hand side first half, doesn’t book him, and then he dives in the box for a penalty. I know he wouldn’t have dived in the box for a penalty with Antony Evans had he been booked for simulation in the first period. Some refs will book you for it and are quite militant with that, and some refs just play on.
We’re disappointed with the bookings, but do I think the lads were trying to con the ref? No, I don’t think they were.
Joey, I thought that was perhaps Jordan Rossiter’s best performance in a Bristol Rovers shirt?
Yeah, he’s unbelievable at what he does. He’s very workmanlike, it’s not flashy what he does, he just keeps it ticking over, but he puts fires out and gets his body in and it’s similar to what N’Golo Kante does at the top of his game.
I think every good team needs a few people like that who put the team above themselves and that allows the flair players and the players who want to express themselves in the creative space to go and enjoy themselves because he’ll go and put a fire out or make a block and steal the ball back. I thought he was outstanding.
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