MILLERS ARE ‘BUZZING’ AS THEY WIN ON SPOT-KICKS
ELATED defender Angus MacDonald hailed a ‘fantastic achievement’ after Rotherham United reached their first EFL Trophy final since 1996 with a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory at Hartlepool.
The Millers, runaway leaders at the top of League One, went into the game as hot favourites to beat a team who were playing Non-League football this time last year.
Graeme Lee’s side put up a fearsome fight, however, and twice forged ahead through Joe Grey and Luke Molyneux.
But two trademark headers from top-scorer Michael Smith hauled the Millers level and, after Molyneux and
Tom Crawford missed from the spot, Mickel Miller netted the decisive penalty in sudden death to send Rotherham to Wembley.
MacDonald, who scored Rotherham’s fourth penalty in their
5-4 shoot-out triumph, said: “It’s a long season, a lot of teams fighting for honours. Not many of them can say they are going to Wembley to challenge for silverware so the lads are buzzing. “We made hard work of it. Rode our luck at times. But what do you expect? That’s the joy of cup competitions. Thankfully, the lads dug in and got the job done.
“Now we need to take the confidence and the positives from this into the rest of the season because there’s so much to look forward to. Pushing for promotion, hopefully winning a trophy - I can’t wait.”
Beaten Hartlepool boss Lee hailed his side’s display, and said both Grey and Molyneux had nothing to be ashamed of. “Performance-wise, we’ve got to take so much from that,” he said. “We’ve matched them at times, scored two goals. “When it got to 4-3 in the shoot-out and we scored the penalty, I didn’t look because I thought we were through. I really did. I thought their lad was going to miss. I just looked at the fans and I was waiting for the response. “It’s a horrible way to lose but the lads have taken responsibility and stepped up to take the penalties so fair play to them. As a player, I didn’t do that. I’ve got no qualms or no worries about the misses. It happens in football.
“We can’t dwell on it. We’ve got to look at the positives at our display and take that into the league.”