Beleaguered Rovers manager Danny Schofield made five changes to his squad for the last home game of the season, including dropping Jonathan Mitchell in favour of Louis Jones.
Rovers started quickly, with Aidan Barlow and Todd Miller both giving their team chances. Jones then tipped over from a Colchester header. Fifteen minutes in, the game was fairly even after an interesting start, although Colchester seemed to be getting more of the chances.
The breakthrough came for Rovers on 30 minutes. A Luke Molyneux free kick found Bobby Faulkner’s head, and Tommy Rowe’s left foot poked the ball past Tom Smith and into the bottom right corner. There were Colchester calls for the goal to be ruled out for offside, but it was given, and for the third time in as many games, Rovers went in at half-time 1-0 up.
The second half was a bit of a scrappy affair, all in all. Not much of interest really happened – both teams got chances, neither team took them, although Colchester were looking the more dangerous of the two.
As the game reached its’ final stages, Colchester manager Ben Garner went into the book for trying to alter the allotted five minutes of stoppage time. This ended with a straight-armed parry from Jones becoming the last action of the match. Colchester believed the ball had gone over the line – no.
Junior Tchamadeu saw red for objecting too strongly after the match, but Rovers had won. Why did they leave it so late?!
by Katy Bateman
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