RUSHIAN BRINGS DOWN THE DONS
MICKY Mellon said Tranmere have finally gained reward for their recent performances after a crucial narrow victory over AFC Wimbledon.
Rushian Hepburn-Murphy scored the only goal of the match midway through the first half but Rovers wasted a host of chances to put the game to bed and had to live dangerously until the very end.
The home win puts Tranmere level with the Dons on 20 points and Mellon believes they were good value for the victory.
He said: “We’re not going to stand here and say we never understood the value of the three-point prize. It was massive to us. We feel that we have been performing well recently, so we took that confidence from the previous performances and in the first half we were terrific. Some of the football we played was really good.
“Of course, you want to get that second goal, which we had plenty of opportunities to get. We’ve all been in football long enough to know that you kind of get that wee bit nervy at times. But on a really tricky pitch, the questions that the players got asked all the way through the second half they answered very well. If we had got the second goal I think that would’ve been fair.”
The Merseysiders took the lead when Manny Monthe won a knockdown at the far post, allowing Connor Jennings to swivel and shoot at goal.
Nathan Trott kept his effort out and also clawed Hepburn-Murphy’s rebound away but the linesman ruled that the ball had already crossed the line.
The Dons’ goalkeeper was single-handedly keeping the visitors in the contest after the break, denying both Neil Danns and Hepburn-Murphy, with the latter also hitting the side netting and blazing a great chance over the bar.
Jennings crashed another effort against the post, but despite their profligacy in front of goal, Wimbledon offered too little at the other end, handing Tranmere a vital victory in the battle to avoid relegation.
Dons boss Glyn Hodges said: “I thought we deserved something. Especially second half, we took the game to them. We had enough opportunities and enough balls into their box – on another day we score.
“We didn’t have the finishing touch but I was pleased with the way we went about it in the second half and even the first half.
“I was a bit dubious whether that ball went over the line but we haven’t got VAR or goal-line technology so we’ve got to take it.
“It’s a defeat and we’re disappointed. It was a long-ball game and a knock-down game. We knew it was going to be like that but we were too far off the midfield.” TRANMERE ROVERS: