Bristol Rovers Quotes - Buzzing

Following Friday evening’s draw against ten-man Peterborough, Rovers defender James Tunnicliffe was wheeled out to face the media and said:


“I’m just trying to keep each game as it comes. Without doubt it’s been the ‘mad-est’ season of my life. I can’t really comment on what’s go on. There’s been ups and downs, but at the minute I’m fully focused and trying to keep my shirt as I know I can’t take anything for granted.

It’s a hard one to explain, but it was a funny atmosphere in the last few months at the club. I put it all down to confidence. I think the lads were all just absolutely drained of confidence. The training’s picked up and everyone has pulled together for each other and Hints (Craig Hinton) has come in and been brilliant. He’s like one of the lads as well and so it’s really good. We’re looking forward to the last few games.

Personally, I’m waking up now and buzzing to get into training. I lost that for a while. It was difficult. That’s personally, for me. I’m not saying the other lads didn’t want to come into training, but I’m absolutely buzzing now and enjoying every day in training.”

It would be strange if James was the only player who was waking up dreading going in to training though and so perhaps explains why they are in their current predicament. How many of us do a good job of work when our hearts aren’t in it?

As for the game, he revealed:

“We are absolutely gutted in there that we didn’t win, but I think that shows how far we’ve come in the last few games. It’s disappointing that they went down to ten men and we didn’t take advantage of that, but on the flip side we’ve come back from 2-1 down. It was just disappointing not to finish a couple of the chances.

They are a brilliant team and you can see why they are up there. The way they kept the ball in the first half and even when they went down to ten men they were still a threat. We had to be on our toes and so looking at it in that respect we’ve picked up a point against one of the top three sides in the division so that’s not bad at all.

I was delighted for Kus (striker and goal scorer Jo Kuffour). Like me it’s been difficult for him in the last couple of months being in and out and not plying, but he got his start tonight and he took his chance.

We’ve had a joke with him (team mate Byron Anthony who put through his own net for Posh’s second goal) ) because I think he’s scored as many own goals as he’s scored goals this year, but it’s good to have him back and at least it hasn’t cost us a result.”

Tunnicliffe was also prepared to pay credit to Peterborough’s main threats George Boyd and Craig Mackail-Smith who made his first international appearance on Sunday when he appeared as a late substitute in Scotland’s game at the Emirates against Brazil. He said:

“They’re two great players. Mackail-Smith’s a great talent and so is George Boyd. They’ve played in the Championship and they are great players and so again, credit to the lads. It is a good point, but like I said we’re disappointed not to get three.”

Mackail –Smith could have stolen all three points in the dying minutes, but dragged his shot just wide of Conrad Logan’s goal and Tunnicliffe admitted:

“It was lack of organization by ourselves there. Maybe we were pushed on a bit too much trying to get the winner and luckily for us he didn’t put it in.”

On Jeff Hughes’s equaliser he said:

“It was a good goal. Harry (Pell) has come back off loan (at Hereford) and he’s playing on the right and gives us that little added height. And Hughesy’s been very consistent all season whether he plays in the middle, on the left or full back.”

Tunnicliffe’s long throws have caused chaos among opposition defenders in recent weeks and he revealed:

“It was difficult in the first half as it was wet, but we put the towels out in the second half. I’d like us to score from one. We’re getting close, but again we’ll be working on it again this week in training because we’ve got a massive, massive three games coming up from Saturday. Hopefully one of them will go in soon.

We go into the game against Yeovil full of confidence. We’ve only lost one in four since Cams (player-boss Stuart Campbell) has taken charge. The performances have improved so we’re going into that game, a local derby, with a lot behind us.

The fans believe and so do we. There’s been such a massive change; the atmosphere, the training. We’ve been very disappointed with what’s happened earlier on in the season. There’s no quarrels about that, but the lads have pulled together and we’re going to give everything we have until the last game of the season and we’re all confident we going to do it.”