As the media guys kicked their heels in the press room (which doubles as a gym), Penney was telling his players exactly what he thought of their performance after watching them lose for the first time ever at home to the U’s.
Conrad Logan’s part in the farcical goal (see report below) may well have been the headline grabber and main talking point, but to his credit he fronted up and made two excellent saves to keep the score down to a ‘respectable’ level.
A special mention too goes to Jean-Paul Kalala who cleared off the line on three separate occasions – once from team mate Jeff Hughes to avoid another Keystone Cops moment.
Another special mention to the Gasheads behind Logan’s goal, who immediately got behind their keeper, sang his name and got an acknowledgement in return. Boos rang out around the ground at the final whistle for the display in general, but they stopped short of singling out Logan who must have already been feeling low.
Before the game I felt that Penney was getting his players onside and that they were going to battle to get out of the mess they are in. As soon as the goal went in though last night their heads dropped and they looked like a team who were waiting for the inevitable to happen – relegation to League Two.
It will be interesting to see how they respond on Saturday against Dagenham & Redbridge. To suggest this is a ‘six pointer’ would be wrong because that suggests that the Daggers are relegation rivals. Wrong, because Dagenham have already gone. Rovers just need the points to give themselves a chance of survival.
With Walsall beating high fliers Southampton, the Rovers lads have proof that if you want it badly enough you can turn over anyone in this division.
They have a squad capable of playing in League One next season. Maybe not competing at the top level, but good enough to survive. The question is: Do they (or some of them) want to play for the club anymore anyway?
I believe that most of them do and really don’t want relegation on their CVs.
Meanwhile, Colchester and former Rovers boss John Ward was obviously delighted with the points that keep his team’s play-off ambitions alive and was also relieved that they had won for the first time away from home since October. He said:
“It’s been too long really. Tonight we could’ve wrapped it up earlier than we did, but it’s a delight to have done it and now we can talk about other things.
I’m biased, but I think we were very strong tonight and we deserved to win it. It was a bizarre goal, but it still had to be finished and Kayode kept his head when he could’ve let the situation get to him.
Generally people get carried away with a win, but we’ve got to win more games if we want to get into the top six.”
Penney was gracious enough to apologise for keeping us hanging around and on occasions like this you feel for the manager knowing that they are going to be questioned by the local media – most fans’ source of information about the club.
The Rovers manager appeared to be still seething as he sat down and honestly said:
“We didn’t start the game well and got exactly what we deserved. Leaving the goal aside, they did things better than us in all departments, worked harder and had more quality. There are no excuses. We didn’t play well and didn’t make the keeper make a save.
We didn’t pass it well enough, started playing long balls and got sucked into playing the way they played.
I thought we were going in the right direction and had developed a different mentality. The sooner we get back-to-back wins the better as the games are running out now.
I hate getting beat whether it’s five-a-side or training.
The buck stops here.”
Big decisions will now need to be made by everyone connected with the club, but the first might merely be: Gloss or emulsion for that dressing room wall?
My clipping from this morning's copy of The Sun
Song artist: The Smiths
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