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Attendance 14,850
Newcastle lined up, somewhat surprisingly, with the following line up. Surprising for 2 main reasons, Carroll, to all intents and purposes was out (for the season, according to some rumours) and the non inclusion of Williamson when it was again rumoured, that he would play.
Harper, Ryan Taylor, Simpson, Butt, Coloccini, Kadar, Routledge, Guthrie, Carroll, Nolan, Gutierrez.
Subs; Krul, Enrique, Pancrate(88 mins for Routledge), Barton (74 mins for Guthrie), Best, Ranger, Tozer.
On a rain soaked Tuesday night some of us wondered if this was to be another Blackpool or Scunthorpe where, 'we don't fancy it' but as it panned out we weren't troubled nearly as much as we were on those two occasions. Doncaster rightly renowned as a decent footballing team and on a pitch that was wet, but like a billiard table at kick off (shared with a Rugby league team too, Wigan's pitch anyone?) should have suited the passing team.
The first half was fairly non descript except for one smart save low down at his near post from Harper and a right foot shot from the edge and angle of the area from Carroll, palmed away by Sullivan. We were comfortable without really threatening ourselves.
No substitutions at half time from either side and after a slow start Routledge produced a through ball of quality for Carroll to run on to and calmly commiting Sullivan before rolling it in right footed at our end...cue mayhem! Doncaster thought they had equalised minutes later when Harper parried a shot but the following in Sharp,who tucked the ball in off the underside of the bar was ruled offside. After last week when I celebrated without looking for a flag, (Nolan's disallowed header) it was nice to see their fans continue the celebrations long after we had spotted the flag.
A flurry of substitutions then followed in the last 20 minutes; which passed off without too much anxiety, for a change. Some comments were passed about who came off when Nolan had a very quiet game and that's being kind, yet stayed on when the game passed him by and contributed nothing to the cause where Ranger's energy could have.
Three very welcome points to continue our promotion push and without taking anything for granted, a win against Nottingham Forest will put us 13 points clear and hopefully deflate any hope Forest have of harbouring a top 2 finish.
