GREAT ESCAPE IS STILL ALIVE
RICARDO Moniz insisted Notts County fans got the victory they deserved after the Magpies took a step towards survival by beating Doncaster on a dramatic afternoon at Meadow Lane.
The Magpies moved out of the bottom four with a 2-1 win, with goals from top scorer Garry Thompson and midfielder Liam Noble proving vital.
A penalty from ex-Magpies loanee Nathan Tyson in injury time made Notts sweat, but they held on for a vital win.
Notts must now hope Colchester avoid victory at Swindon with their game in hand on Tuesday and then need to win at Gillingham to give themselves a chance of making a Great Escape.
Reflecting on a vital win, Moniz said: “The fans got what they deserved. We gave them something and we must win their respect.
“They responded and it was pretty unique.
“We scored early and you need that because if you concede you are chasing, but on this occasion we took the initiative.
“After 30 minutes we ran back too much and gave too much space to their midfield. Furman was free, Forrester went to the right and our organisation went.
“We must organise better. We must play like we are in the streets. We say ‘I’ll take him, you take him’.
“They showed they could play good football but after we went 2-0 up we didn’t do what we had talked about.
“They scored a penalty in the last minute and then you have a heart attack.
“I can’t have any influence over the penalty, but we showed a lack of discipline beforehand.”
Doncaster arrived at Notts with nothing to play for and it showed in the early stages as they struggled to match the pace of Notts’ start.
Thompson then found the breakthrough after eight minutes when he produced a cool finish from Graham Burke’s excellent cross.
Doncaster improved significantly at the start of the second half, but Liam Noble made it 2-0 to Notts with an instinctive finish from a smart Burke pass.
Tyson scored from the spot deep in stoppage time when he was brought down by Haydn Hollis but there was too little time left to score an equaliser.
Rovers boss Paul Dickov was disappointed with his side’s performance, especially the defending for both goals.
“There was one team fighting and scrapping for their lives and the final outcome was probably the right one,” he said.
“They just had more energy and they had more to play for because they are trying to stay in the league.
“We started the game with a diamond formation because we thought that would cause them problems.
“But when you play a diamond you have to play through the thirds and we just kept lumping it to Nathan Tyson.
“We changed it around and put James Coppinger in the middle and I thought he did really well in there. But the goals we conceded were very poor.”