Bristol Rovers 3-1 Northampton Town (League Two)

At the sixth attempt, Rovers finally managed to record their first home victory of the season. Second half goals from Tom Eaves, Garry Kenneth and Oliver Norburn saw off ten man Northampton Town, although Adebayo Akinfenwa did score a consolation from a long throw. The Cobblers saw Anthony Charles dismissed for a professional foul on Derek Riordan when the Scot was through on goal 25 minutes in and Rovers were able to take control of the game from then on in.

The only change made to the line-up was Tom Parkes' return to the heart of defence in place of Adam Vrigo, although Mark McGhee was forced to make another just before kick-off. Matt Gill injured himself in the warm up and that forced a reshuffle - David Clarkson dropped in to central midfield, Eliot Richards began at right midfield, Michael Smith was given a late call-up to the substitutes bench and Garry Kenneth was made captain. Despite the change, confidence appeared high both on the pitch and in the terraces and the hope was that we could go on and dominate. The game started with us trying to assert ourselves and without creating any goalscoring opportunities we were playing some neat football. Clarkson looked assured in the middle but didn't quite penetrate the visitors' back-line with his passing so chances remained at a premium. That began to change after quarter of an hour as we got in behind the defence with Fabian Broghammer and Riordan and it was one of these attacks that lead to the first real incident of the game. The latter was running through on goal when Charles tripped him from behind and despite a moment's hesitation by the referee, he was duly red carded. From the resulting free-kick Riordan curled a superb strike over the wall and towards the top corner but saw his effort clip the bar and bounce over. It lifted spirits further and the general consensus was that there were goals in it for us.

However, the rest of the half petered out with little action but all that was to change after half-time. It took Rovers a matter of minutes to break the deadlock and it came courtesy of loanee Eaves. Richards sent in a low ball and the Cobblers defence didn't deal with it, allowing Eaves to slide home past the goalkeeper Lee Nicholls. He was clearly delighted with his first senior goal and that feeling was mutual among Gasheads! Hopefully that is the first of many. The lead was doubled a few minutes later from a, shock horror, set piece! A corner from Broghammer was whipped in, Parkes made contact and the ball landed perfectly for Kenneth to guide home with his left foot. Kenneth was elated with his first Gas goal too and patted the Rovers badge with pride when celebrating in front of the Blackthorn End. 2-0, surely we were comfortable now? We weren't going to concede our seemingly unassailable lead?

Oliver Norburn scored Rovers third of the afternoon

Well Northampton pulled a goal back through big striker Akinfenwa, who has the uncanny knack of scoring against us every time we play, and it gave them hope they could nick something from the game. It was a throwing we should have defended much better with but the main focus at this point was to ensure we didn't give them another goal. The best way to do that was to score again ourselves. After a bit of end to end action we finally did just that when Norburn headed home a Richards cross - now it was game over. In keeping with the theme of the day, it was Norburn's first Rovers goal and surely won't be his last. We saw the remaining minutes of the game out comfortably and thoroughly deserved our first home 3 points of the season. The weight has been lifted from the shoulders of the team now and hopefully we can go on and turn the Mem back in to a place that opposition teams won't relish coming to. Next up is a trip to Burton Albion on Saturday, giving us a full week of rest and preparation following our hectic schedule recently.

Onwards and upwards.