Have to say, I really enjoyed last nights game - the fans that had managed to get to the game were loud and good humoured. The game itself was one of the most enjoyable ive been to as a fan for a while. 1st half - Nelsen gave away a stupid free kick and we were punished, Emerton and Neill were useles, Reid was average and Pederson was keen. Savage I have to say was very good, Axe broke up the Baggies fairly well. Stead ran his heart out, I still cant understand how it didnt go in. Pederson's free kicks were woefull, leave em to Savage mate. 2nd half and a downpour - Steve Bennett begins handing out yellow cards for tackles that wouldnt get a freekick 1st half - I think because he wanted to protect the players from injury from an "over enthusiastic/lethal" sliding tackle, once the rain stopped, so did the cards - good reffing - Rovers were still a bit flat however probing runs from Pederson and some runs and then run backs from Emerton did show a glimmer of hope. Enter the Turkish delight. I hold my hands up - i thought tugs was past it - dear god he ran the show, popping passes like a couple of seasons ago - Baggies gave him space and god did he punish them. All of a sudden Rovers were a different team spreading play from flank to flank - Pederson who was realling irritating me at this point with his crap passing/crossing tehn proves me wrong by hitting a sweet low cross that Stead "dummied" (compleatly missed) and drew the defenders to him, leaving Emerton to control and hit a sweet shot past Hoult into the top corner of the net. Cue celebrations from the Rovers fans. I still think Emerton tried to cross the ball and miss hit it as that was too good a shot for him to have actually meant it . With a visibly more confident rovers playing as well as I've seen this season I still cant believe that we didnt get a second. Gally came on for a visibly tiring Savage, rovers went to a 4-4-2 and then the Ref blew for FT.
MoM - Stead for his tireless running or Tugay for his match winning contribution
other points - Emerton was bloody irritating as usual, good goal though, Neil was a liability but Matteo was very impressive at left back - seriously, defensively he's great passing wise and offensively not the best, but as a defender he was very good. Baggies should have had a penalty for Todd rugby tackling campbell in the box