ROVERS’ RESOLVE DELIGHTS McCANN
GRANT McCANN was delighted his Doncaster side ‘showed the other side of their game’ as they picked up their first win in seven matches.
Goals early in each half from Matty Blair and Ben Whiteman helped Rovers to victory over Luton, with the hosts forced to show plenty of defensive resolve to hold onto their lead.
“We are showing our steel at the minute,” McCann said. “We’re showing both sides of our game.
“We showed our quality against Portsmouth and Peterborough and we showed our steel in this one and that is the side you need if you are going to challenge in this league.
“That is four unbeaten in the league – two against the top two and one against a team I think will be in the top six without a shadow of a doubt.”
McCann added: “We reacted at halftime. I told them what I felt and they seemed a bit flat, but my God, did they start quick.
“It’s a long season and we’ve started okay.”
Blair opened the scoring for Doncaster with a superb individual effort just six minutes in. Starting from halfway, he surged forward before slamming a superb shot into the far corner from the edge of the box.
Luton responded well and piled on the pressure with Elliot Lee, James Collins and Jorge Grant all going close to drawing them level.
But the visitors grabbed a deserved equaliser in first-half stoppage time when Lee headed in from close range from a Dan Potts knock back.
Doncaster halted the Luton momentum just 35 seconds into the second half. A shot from Blair was blocked out only as far as Whiteman whose low strike from 20 yards found the corner via a deflection.
Luton again had the more threatening play, with chances for Potts and Pelly Ruddock-Mpanzu, but they could not break Doncaster’s resolve.
Luton boss Nathan Jones says he may have to shift his focus after conceding another early goal at Doncaster. The Hatters have earned the comeback kings tag in League One after rescuing points from losing positions.
But Jones says he may have to forego worrying about conceding goals and concentrate his efforts on how Luton react.
“Maybe we’re making too big a thing of it,” he said. “Maybe I need to just say ‘whatever happens, happens’ and just go out, relax and play.
“I had a text message off someone earlier today saying if we sort the firsthalf performances out then we’ll be fine.It took us six minutes to go behind and then one minute in the second half to go behind again.
“We can’t keep doing that. We must have professionalism there.”