I'm not going to lie and say that I'd not wanted a cup run, it would have been a nice little distraction for the first time in quite a few years, but it just wasn't meant to be. We came up against a very confident and strong Doncaster Rovers squad that will challenge for promotion in League One this season, and given the display, other than a quick 5 minute spell in the middle, was quite decent in the first half.

We looked solid defensively before the goal with Adie Moses particulary impressing me on his return to the starting line up. I always said last season that our defensive problems started when he got injured and now that he's back we can start to seriously look at promotion again.

Ryan Amoo proved to be quite a surprisingly sufficient right back. Infact it was probably the best he's played since the day at Peterborough last December. For a player who is often the victim of abuse from fans, unfortunately including myself, this could be the best thing that happened to him and if he can continue that level of performance in the position then he will win over more fans, increasing his confidence along the way.

The thing that disappointed me most about the general defence however was that they again looked very unconfident after the first goal and from that point onwards you knew we'd concede a few more during the game. Unfortunately goals 3 and 4 were completely avoidable. After the first goal the defence seemed to avoid closing down and just let the Doncaster players run freely forward. This is unacceptable and if it hadn't been for Marriott then we would have truly been destroyed.

Nothing needs to be said about goal 3 because goalkeepers are prone to mistakes but number 4 was extremely disappointing. Scott Kerr must surely have a pass accuracy rating percentage in the single figures. I mean I know that you're likely to misplace a few passes during the game but the amount he's misplaced in the last two games is bordering on ridiculous.

There were also plenty of times we looked dangerous going forward, missing several great opportunities from 6 yards. Unfortunately we also seemed to "do and Arsenal" and try and pass it into the net. If we could cut this out and attempt more shots then we would actually score quite a few decent goals this season, such as the one Forrester scored.

Speaking of going forward brings me to Steve Torpey. Now, I can understand fans being frustrated at the current situations but the reaction when he got substituted was bordering on stupid, cruel and ridiculous. Ok, he's not your favourite player by quite a long way but give the guy a break. The reaction that the fans gave him was unnessacery and will more likely do more damage than good.

Despite of not agreeing with the reaction to him going off, I agree with virtually everyone that Stallard should be starting in front of him. You can't just break up a forward line that scored close to 40 goals last season. I attacked Stallard once or twice last season but he proved last season that he can still easily find the net on a regular basis and this could be the difference between promotion/playoffs or midtable, or even survival or relegation throughout the rest of the season.

I'm not going to lie, this overall performance certainly doesn't re-install most of the confidence that I had before hand, but the return of Adie Moses, as well as the debut of Ben Wright (who played fairly well) have started to get me back on track towards being slightly optimistic.

Obviously a 4-1 scoreline isn't desireable, but I think that if we can play defensively like we did for most of the first half then we could give Mansfield a very decent game on Saturday and possibly secure our first point.....you can only hope really can't you.

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