Royals labour to win against lowly Doncaster

OK, a win's a win. I'm going to struggle to say much more about a performance that echoed Saturday's against Preston, but that thankfully had the opposite result. In fairness to Doncaster Rovers, they looked a bit better than their league position suggests, but if I was being unkind I'd say at times we made them look way better than they really are. We looked anything but the form team who have swept all aside at 'Fortress Madejski', and it was a relief when Andre Bikey opened the scoring with a header from a Stephen Hunt free kick. We didn't really build on it though and Doncaster actually threatened themselves and racked up a few corners. Neat passing in a compact formation seemed to make them difficult opponents for the Royals and the half time interval offered an opportunity to take stock and come out with renewed vigour in the second half. This wasn't to be the case and as this tawdry affair drew to its conclusion the inevitable happened: Doncaster scored from a simple set piece, much to the delight of their small travelling contingent. An unlikely point seemed to be on the cards for the visitors, but almost immediately Kevin Doyle equalised with a decent header. It was probably a bit harsh on Donny, but came as welcome relief to the home support who were getting a little restless. We never really kicked on from there which led to a tense last few minutes, but the points were in the bag. In many ways this reminded me a bygone era: unfashionable opponents, cold Tuesday evening, lots of empty seats (although 18,000 is very respectable considering the appeal of the fixture!) and not much in the way of entertainment. We've been lucky enough to have had plenty to cheer about this season at home -maybe we shouldn't expect to thrash everyone but we will need to improve on Saturday against QPR.