Football / Bristol Rovers
Match report: Rovers 4-2 Southend United
The person who first used the expression ‘a game of two halves’ just called. “That,” he said, “is exactly what I was talking about.”
For 45 minutes against a Southend side whose paltry points return has them 22nd only because one team has expired and another started on minus figures, Rovers were outplayed.
The visitors played with more verve, belief and – frankly – quality than a remarkably lacklustre Rovers, and went into half time with a 2-0 lead with goals from Tom Hopper and Timothee Dieng. It looked like a rather embarrassing home defeat was on the cards.
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The second half, literally from the opening seconds, was an entirely different story. Rovers scored four, and in the end the 4-2 result could have been a wider gap.
The Gas were a side reborn, and played with not only a renewed vigour, but with no little quality.
Jonson Clarke-Harris, Abu Ogogo and Ed Upson all scored to turned the game around, before a fourth goal sealed things, which may have come via Tony Craig or Alfie Kilgour, it was hard to tell.
There was no doubting the result, though, and the elation that Gasheads felt leaving the Mem was a stark contrast to their emotions an hour earlier.
Photo by JMP
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