The Memorial Stadium Sunday 27th November 2022

Bristol Rovers 0

Boreham Wood 2

Evans (18), Stephens (30)

Referee: Samuel Barrott Attendance: 4,769

We were told, before kick off, that illness had swept through the Rovers camp ahead of this second round FA Cup tie, and whilst the cynical amongst supporters might have said the club were getting in their excuses early, Joe Barton’s team selection reflected the fact that some of his best players were unavailable.

National League side Boreham Wood, who reached the fifth round of last season’s competition before bowing out against Everton at Goodison Park, were certainly going to be no pushovers this season, and so it proved.

Skipper for the afternoon was James Connolly who, at 21, is certainly one of the youngest to wear the armband in recent times though Lewis Hogg was only 19 years and 249 days old when he led the team out against Derby in the FA Cup some twenty years ago.

The visitors, who sat just outside the National League play off places before kick off, were led by 37 year old manager Luke Garrard who had made no secret of how he had analysed Rovers. He said he had identified a weakness in Rovers defending from set pieces and that he doubted his side would play too much football on the ground.

His comments proved to be spot on, as we shall see. Rovers were the brighter of the two sides for the opening 15 minutes and after Antony Evans had curled a shot wide Aaron Collins, enjoying a great deal of freedom down the right, saw a shot blocked by James Fyfield while Ryan Loft’s ambitious overhead kick also missed the target.

And then came the opening goal for the visitors, from a corner. There were 18 minutes on the clock when Zak Brunt played the ball to the unmarked George Broadbent on the edge of the area and his first time shot looked to take a deflection on its way into the net. It did, and it later transpired that it had hit his team mate Will Evans who was credited with the goal.

Rovers couldn’t seem to muster a response and clearly one or two players were underperforming; possibly the effects of the illness we had already been told of.

Things got worse for Barton’s side on the half hour mark as the visitors scored again when, following another corner schoolboy defending afforded David Stephens the opportunity to loop a header over a stranded James Belshaw.

The manager, who had remained passive in his technical area in the first half had obviously made his feelings clear in the dressing room during the interval as he made four changes to his side at the start of the second half. I suspect his hardest decision was knowing which four to replace as the first half performance was so poor he could well have sent on 11 new players!

The second half display was marginally better, though nowhere near good enough and although Harvey Saunders and Luke McCormick saw efforts blocked and keeper Nathan Ashmore save another Saunders effort, it never looked as though Rovers would score and they limped out of this season’s FA Cup at the second hurdle.

Bristol Rovers: Belshaw, Thomas (Gibbons, 46), Connolly, Gibson, Sinclair, Evans (McCormick, 46), Whelan (Finley, 46), Gordon (Clarke, 46), Collins, Loft (Saunders, 66), Coburn.

Substitutes: Jaakkola, Kilgour, Hoole.

Boreham Wood: Ashmore, Evans, Stephens, Fyfield, Coxe, Broadbent, Payne, Brunt (Rees, 76), Ilesanmi, Ndlovu (Marsh, 71), Newton.

Substitutes: Elliott, Lewis, Williams, Sousa, Andrade.

ALSO

There were no former Rovers players in the Boreham Wood side

James Connolly was skipper though Sam Finley took the armband when he went on at the start of the second half

A yellow card was issued to Trevor Clarke

Five substitutes used

Eight added minutes

(Photos courtesy of JMP)

Keith Brookman