Bristol Rovers v Colchester - Essex Dogs

Back to the Mem again tonight to watch Rovers take on play-off chasing Colchester.

The Essex boys haven’t won away from home since October 30th when they beat Bournemouth and so that should encourage Dave Penney’s team tonight.

Despite the fact that they are sniffing around the play-off spots they form hasn’t been too consistent in recent weeks either and they’ve managed two wins and one draw in the last six games.

The two leading scorers are also midfielders. Dave Mooney has seven and Anthony Bond has six, although striker Ian Henderson has also weighed in with five. There doesn’t appear to be a Will Hoskins in their ranks though and the Rovers hit man will be hoping to add to his tally of fifteen league goals for the term.

A win tonight could see Rovers move out of the bottom four. Walsall (currently one place above them) have a tricky home game against Southampton and Swindon, who are fifth from bottom and seem to be imploding, don’t have a game.

Victory would give Rovers thirty-three points and should Yeovil lose at home against league leaders Brighton, move them to within three points of their West Country neighbours.

All in all, tonight could well prove to be a defining point in the season for the Gas. They have shown signs in recent games of being more than capable of winning games and definitely have the players to survive in this division.

Penney told the local media:

“It's more important to be out of the bottom four at the end of the season, but we need to get as many points on the board as quickly as we can. Three tonight would get us out of it and give us something to aim for on Saturday. Not that long ago, we were bottom of the league and six points adrift. Then we got a result against Oldham, Plymouth had 10 points deducted and now we're a point adrift. We would have loved to have got something on Saturday to make up more ground, but there's a chance to come out of the bottom four tonight so there's plenty to play for."

Added spice for tonight’s encounter will be the return of U’s boss John Ward. Ward was in charge for 155 Rovers games winning 65 of them and drawing 42. Not a bad record and he’s one of the game’s nice guys too … but he’s also wily and knows his stuff.

He’s also a former Bristol City manager which will endear him to the home support.

After Saturday’s defeat to relegation strugglers Plymouth, Ward said:

“It’ll be easy to pick them up - they’ll be ok. They were disappointed with the Plymouth defeat as much as I am, but they’re also very honest and they’ll know that they could have done better than they did. I didn’t say much to them immediately after the game, because I wanted to think about what I said to them.”

This is the first league game between these two sides this season and Rovers will be hoping that by the last day of the season on May 7th when they are due to visit