Bristol Rovers 2-0 Exeter City (League Two)

Rovers inflicted another defeat on a promotion-chasing side with a superb 2-0 home victory over Exeter City at the Mem last night. A somewhat fortuitous Ollie Norburn opener was doubled 10 minutes from time with a Lee Brown thunderbolt to seal an impressive victory for John Ward's men.

Lee Brown, scorer of Rovers' second goal

The game started in a pretty mundane fashion in front of a crowd in excess of 7000 and neither side really got a foothold. Exeter had a couple of little incidents when they progressed forward looking to play in Jamie Cureton and John O'Flynn, but the Rovers defence prevented any danger. We didn't look particularly threatening ourselves at first either. Ellis Harrison attempted to get past former Bristol City full-back Kevin Amankwaah but was unable to outmanoeuvre the athletic Exeter defender. A couple of Eliot Richards runs towards goal saw us win a couple of corners and that's when we started to look a little more dangerous. Noruburn delivered a right footed corner that was met strongly by Tom Parkes, who directed his header towards the top left-hand corner. Polish goalie Artur Krysiak scrambled across his line to tip the ball behind for another corner to prevent what looked like a certain goal. That wasn't the only significant part Krysiak was to play in the first half.

Norburn advanced forward to a position 35 yards from goal after good work from John-Joe O'Toole and struck a low shot towards goal. It was well struck but was directed at the goalkeeper, who we all expected to make a comfortable save. As the ball reached him though he somehow fumbled it between his legs and the ball rolled in to the back of the net. It surprised the players and certainly all of the supporters but it was 1-0 Rovers all the same! This changed the flow of the game and Rovers looked more assured and confident. The lead was there to defend and the game plan was clearly to harry the keep-ball Exeter backline and force them to lump it long to two short strikers. It worked a treat and apart from a free-kick 25 yards out that Cureton eyed up, there were no real nervy moments.

After the interval Exeter, as they do typically, kept the ball in and around the midfield but were never given an opportunity to make anything of it thanks in no small part to the work Danny Woodards and O'Toole were doing in the middle of the park. They broke up the play well and prompted a couple of counter attacks that put former Gas players Danny Coles and Pat Baldwin under pressure. Richards tried his luck a couple of times, whilst Ryan Brunt hit a terrific overhead kick from a corner that Krysiak had to tip over the crossbar. The goalkeeper was being terrorised by the Blackthorn End with chants of 'dodgy keeper' every time he was near the ball. He clearly didn't like the stick he was getting and became very defensive but he did deal with everything thrown his way. Richards tested him again with a left footed effort from the edge of the box but it never really looked like finding its way in to the net. The Grecians had made all 3 substitutes but none of Paul Tisdale's men looked capable of troubling Steve Mildenhall. Cureton snatched a half-chance wide whilst Arron Davies was unable to send in any testing left-wing crosses for his strikers to feed off.

It was all very comfortable for Rovers and we looked dangerous when attacking. The pressure we were beginning to exert once again finally saw us double our advantage and it was a tremendous goal. Brown picked up the ball 25 yards from goal to the left of the area, took a couple of touches before drilling a swerving effort that Krysiak had no chance of saving at his near post. It was game, set, match for the Gas and Brown celebrated with the Blackthorn End with a run that included high-fiving the supporters congregated at the front of the terrace. There was 10 minutes left and you'd have thought Exeter would have thrown everything at us but it just didn't happen. They continued to pass the ball but with no end product and it was a really comfortable final few minutes for the excellent Rovers back four. The final incident came when an Exeter forward challenged Mildenhall for a cross with a late lunge and the experienced goalie, quite rightly, stormed up to the player involved and questioned why it was so mistimed. To diffuse the situation the referee blew the final whistle and the game was brought to an end. The continued feel-good factor around the Mem was becoming ever-greater and the team celebrated with the fans long after the Grecians had returned to the changing rooms. John Ward's barmy army were happy and it became 5 goals without reply in two league games which will give the lads confidence heading in to a tricky game with Chesterfield at the B2Net Stadium on Saturday.

There's little time to prepare for it, just 48 hours in fact, but if we can put in a similarly impressive performance then we can achieve a positive result.