Oooh Arrr It's A Gassacre!

It's taken me 27 hours to draw breath after one of the most enjoyable Bristol Rovers games I've had the pleasure of watching at the Mem, not only this season but of all time. Following a clinical second half display that saw us score 6 goals, Rovers recorded a 7-1 demolition of mid-table Burton Albion to maintain our unbeaten home record since Mark McGhee took over. It genuinely was seventh heaven for the boys in blue and white.

Watching the first half unfold as it did, even the most optimistic of Gasheads will have struggled to envisage the thought we'd hit our visitors with half a dozen goals in the second 45. In fact, Burton were much the livelier of the two sides in the opening exchanges, with Calvin Zola proving a handful for Cian Bolger and Tom Parkes with his mountainous strength. He had a header blocked by Danny Woodards before Rovers finally limited the balls played in to the powerful frontman and began attacking for themselves. There were few chances that Ross Atkins had to deal with in the away goal before Muzzy Carayol seized the initiative and took matters in to his own hands. Picking up the ball from a free-kick 30 yards out, the wing wizard launched a swerving drive towards goal which Atkins couldn't prevent from landing in the back of the net. McGhee and his team will have been delighted to go in at half-time 1-0 up because we didn't threaten nearly enough when in and around their penalty box. The message at half-time would have been pick up the pace but don't leave yourself exposed at the back.

It took all of 12 seconds for us to impose ourselves once again on a beleaguered Albion rearguard, as Eliot Richards took advantage of Ryan Austin misjudging the flight of the ball before moving towards goal and poking home. 2-0 and it was all over surely? Well, Burton fired us a warning when the dangerous Zola ran through and lifted the ball over the onrushing Bevan and in to the top corner of the net. Game on... or so the away fans would have thought.

First professional hat-trick for Eliot Richards

Oh no, Rovers had other ideas and made their intentions clear by relentlessly attacking the Blackthorn End. It took 7 minutes after Burton's reply for us to edge two goals in front again. The impressive Richards got in behind their back-line before getting tripped by Nathan Stanton, leaving referee Trevor Kettle with no choice but to point the spot. Up stepped top scorer Matt Harrold who venomously struck the ball high in to the middle of the net and secure the 3 points for sure. Celebrations all round, but that wouldn't be the end of our goal-scoring exploits for the afternoon. We began to completely overrun Burton and it took just another 5 minutes for us to extend our lead.

The influential Carayol skipped past two players to get towards the byline, before sending a low ball across the box. It missed Harrold but arriving at the edge of the box was Jim Paterson who coolly slotted home in to the bottom corner to register his first Gas goal. The decibel level around the ground wasn't all that high during the first hour of the game, but the excitement proved catalyst for a much noisier final 30 minutes and the 5300 fans will have been enjoying the feast of goals on show. Harrold doubled his total for the day to two when he hit a low strike off a defender's legs and in to the back of the net, before Richards scored a super sixth. A calamitous miscommunication between Atkins and Stanton led to both colliding on the edge of the box, allowing Richards to nip in and pass in to an unguarded net. This was wonderland but there was one final goal left in the Rovers side and it was a hat-trick strike for out-of-contract Eliot Richards. The Welsh forward turned towards goal and fired a powerful strike beyond Atkins and in to the bottom right hand corner from 20 yards. A superb strike that was more than worthy of capping a forward's first ever professional hat-trick. Congratulations to Eliot, there will be more to come I'm sure.

The rest of the game was seen out with ease and the only thing the majority of Rovers fans could have wished for was Wayne Brown scoring on his return to the side, but that would have been greedy really. It was a simply stunning second half performance from Rovers and sent a warning to the rest of League Two that Rovers are a force to be reckoned with. It was a joy to watch Rovers perform as well as that, it's something we haven't seen in a long time. Hopefully under McGhee there will be plenty more days like yesterday over the coming years.

7-1. We'll take that I think. Up the Gas!