WYKE’S WIDE-AWAKE

time after indulging in a bit of banter with the Bantams boss.

Mccall said: ”It’s always good for a striker to get off the mark, and Charlie is delighted to have done it with a hat-trick.

“I had given him a bit of playful stick in the week about needing to get among the goals.

“So he’s well and truly stuck two fingers up at me for that, hasn’t he!

“Seriously, Charlie will get the headlines – and deservedly so.

“But there were a lot of good individual performances out there incorporated in our best and most satisfying team display of the season.”

The alert Wyke was a constant menace to the Bristol Rovers rearguard in the lunchtime kick-off.

He fired home the opener on 13 minutes when skipper Romain Vincelot flicked on Tony Mcmahon’s corner.

It was only a matter of time before wicked Wyke struck again, and he duly delivered to notch City’s second in the 62nd minute.

This time, the big guy was left all alone eight yards out – and made Rovers pay by planting a towering header into the back of the net from another precise Mcmahon corner. And Wyke completed his hat-trick 11 minutes later by burying a far-post header from a Jake Reeves cross.

Billy Bodin grabbed a consolation goal for Rovers nine minutes from time.

But boss Darrell Clarke admitted: ”We delivered a weak defensive performance that simply wasn’t good enough.

“My players have jobs to do defending set-pieces, but we just didn’t do them and that was the most disappointing thing.

“We’ve got to be more ruthless and better at the back. But we’ll brush ourselves down and go again next week.”