Rovers 2-1 Macclesfield Town and Daily Update

By: Jim | July 14th, 2008

Today goals by Dunn and Gallagher gave the Rovers a win in their first pre-season outing. Ince made 11 changes at the half and one more during the second half to give plenty of players a chance to make a mark in his eyes as he continues to build the club up come the league opener. DB was ruled out with a calf injury and Bred started between the posts for us. You can read the official sites report on the game by clicking right here. Couldn’t find any highlights, so we’ll just have to make due with the write ups. Would just like to add that the “Crown” logo looked quite sharp, so I hope the club keep it as a third kit. Looks like I’ll be spending quite a few dollars(or quid or bob…whichever you prefer) at the RoversStore once it is open and functional online. Moving on…

It seems our club can’t stay out of the headlines. Here’s the latest in your daily update:

Nigel Winterburn officially named new defensive coach.– Rovers’ Official Site

Aston Villa officially bid for Bentley.—SkySports

More on Winterburn’s appointment.—Setanta Sports

RSC “focused” on Blackburn.—TEAMtalk

Ince confirms the bid for Bents.—Eurosport & Yahoo

Finally, I mentioned the club shop before. Expect a write up on that when the online portion is 100% up. I’ve heard great things about it though from people lucky enough to be there. Until next time, Up the Rovers!

Edit: After the jump I’ve added a match review write up that I enjoyed and thought was quite good. Cheers to RevidgeBlue from BRFCS.com for it.

Very enjoyable evening. I knew Macclesfield were a small club and ground etc. but I didn’t realise they were THAT small, was like a throwback to the old 3rd division days in the early to mid 70’s.

Decent Rovers following - crowd of just over 2000 - of which well over half seemed to be from Blackburn.

As Macclesfield play in dark blue, we donned the red and black halves once again which looked even better with the black Crown paints logo. Hope they go on open sale at some point as well.

We started with a very strong side (including Brad) but no Bentley or RSC. Derbyshire wide right, Roberts and McCarthy up front.

We didn’t really fire first half, McCarthy hit the outside of the post with a curling shot from distance after about 35 mins and Dunn scored a delightful goal after a mazy run and neat shot into the bottom right hand corner after 42 mins. That was the only real excitement of the half although I was extremely impressed with our fitness levels, we seemed a lot sharper and hungrier than when I’ve seen us play friendlies at a similar stage in previous seasons.

At half time we made eleven changes including Paul Gallagher coming on. Unbelievably he scored within about ten seconds of the restart, nodding in an excellent cross from the right wing. The rest of the second half was even more of an anti climax with basically a reserve side being on but again there was nothing wrong with the motivation or levels of commitment. They got one back whilst I was texting tnr.

In the first half I thought Samba was terrific, looked like he’d been playing all summer, his game was bob on. MGP and Reid also looked a lot sharper they did for much of the time lasrt season imo.

In the second half I thought Gallagher looked a cut above the other “reserves”.

What a nice man Steven Warnock is, after coming off at half time, came over to the Rovers fans on the other side of the pitch for photos and autograph signings.

The other highlight was seeing Robbie Savage on the team coach before the game with his young daughter. Apparently he got on after the others got off and subsequently appeared to be getting on famously with Dunny, and John Williams. What a great bloke he is too. Must be worth ten points having him around (unless you’re Derby).

We asked him if he’d come in his 160k Derby coloured Merc and he said he had then we asked him about the latest stories about a Range Rover with diamante lettering and he said it was right about the Range Rover but not the lettering! I was rather hoping we might have signed him back on the cheap but I suspect it was more to do with his daughter who was wearing a Rovers top. I also overheard Sav say to someone else that he can’t get a Derby shirt near her. Sensible young lady!

Met Paul Ince briefly outside the ground after the game and wished him luck. He seems a really bright, bubbly and likeable personality.

So not too much to be drawn from the game itself, although all 22 players certainly looked well up for it and fitness levels seemed excellent.