Boro 1 - 2 Rovers

By: Dan Clough | August 12th, 2007

We’re back into full swing again and an opening-day victory for Rovers is something of a rarity!

We have managed to position ourselves in third place in the table, above Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal after a 2-1 win at The Riverside Stadium.

To be fair to Boro, they pissed on us. They had chances to win this game and took the lead about half an hour in when Stewart Downing’s free-kick somehow got through our wall and beat Brad at his near post. Shocking defending, the ball somehow got between Savage and the person he was next to in the wall!

It looked as though it was going to be ‘one of those days’ until a terrifying incident involving Benni McCarthy and a stretcher. Having gone for an aerial ball with two Boro defenders he lay on the ground for a while, then got up looking rather shaky. When approached by Dave Fevre (physio) he appeared to collapse and was subsequently stretchered off. Luckily, in the post-match interview Hughesy stated that reports suggest he is fine.

Santa Cruz was the replacement and, two minutes later, he was delivering his first present (is that joke getting old now). A trademark David Bentley cross was met by an excellent header from the Paraguayan forward and the effort beat the Boro keeper and sailed into the top corner.

With about ten minutes to go Matt Derbyshire was brought on to replace Jason Roberts. His first touch was to control a pass on the edge of the box, his second to move the ball a little. His third touch curled into the top corner! An absolutely fantastic finish from Derbs after being on the pitch for around 20 seconds!

The game finished in a rather untidy manner, a miniature scuffle between both sets of players, interrupted by an irate Sparky ordering the boys off the pitch!

Team
Friedel

Oijer
Warnock
Nelsen
Samba

Savage
Dunn (Mokoena 89)
Pedersen
Bentley

Roberts (Derbyshire 77)
McCarthy (Santa Cruz 59)

Subs:
Brown
Tugay