Clarke and Craig give Rovers a big return

BRISTOL ROVERS got their first win of the season at Adams Park, courtesy of first-half goals from James Clarke and Tony Craig.

Rovers were ahead just four minutes in as Clarke fired home from close range after Liam Sercombe’s corner bounced into his path off a defender.

Stefan Payne headed over when trying to make it two before the lead was doubled after 20 minutes.

The Chairboys were undone by another corner as centre-back Craig rose highest to head Sam Matthews’ in-swinging cross past the diving Ryan Allsop.

After the break Adebayo Akinfenwa came close for the hosts, looping a header onto the roof of the net.

Allsop pulled off a couple of fine saves in the hosts’ goal to deny Sercombe and then Payne adding a third.

With eight minutes left Scott Kashket provided a late scare after rounding Adam Smith to score the Chairboys’ first league goal of the campaign

Wanderers boss Gareth Ainsworth wants big improvements quickly from his side and admitted he gave his charges quite a dressing down at half-time.

“We’re going to have to make some decisions for Tuesday night,” he said. “It’s coming thick and fast and hopefully we can get something down at Plymouth which again is going to be a big game.

“We weren’t good enough by any means in the first half. It took a talk at halftime and a couple of chances to get some energy back into the team.

“We conceded two very cheap goals in 15 minutes. You can’t do that at this level because you get punished and you’re going to have an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, Rovers boss Darrell Clarke was delighted with his side’s work rate as they followed up their 2-1 midweek win over Crawley in the EFL Cup with a first league win.

“We’re really pleased to kickstart our season,” he said.

“I was pleased with the team’s grittiness, we defended well, and we scored two goals from set pieces which is nice, it’s served us well so far this season.

“Defensively we were superb, we could be a bit more clinical with our counter attacks late in the game, but we created a lot of opportunities.