Attendance: 7,114

            Referee – Anthony Taylor (Cheshire)

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Friday Night Football used to serve up decent performances from Rovers but in recent games this hasn’t been the case.  Tonight however, Rovers finally clicked and finally took an opportunity to move up the League Table before most of their rivals have kicked a ball.

First half goals from Gareth Taylor and Chris McCready set Rovers on the way but the home side suffered a set back when Chris Hackett scored halved the deficit before half-time.  However a third goal for Rovers eventually came from Chris Shuker and sealed three vital points.

Ronnie Moore made five changes to the side that lost 1-0 to Darlington in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on Tuesday with Gavin Ward, Paul McLaren, John Thompson, Ian Goodison and Chris Greenacre returned to the starting line-up in place of John Achterberg, Steven Jennings, Kevin Ellison, Jason McAteer and Carl Tremarco with Davies moving to the left wing in place of the injured Ellison.

The game started brightly and after just six minutes the visiting fans in the Cowshed Stand thought they had the lead when Gavin Ward dropped the ball and Paul Robinson tried to ram it home but the ball was cleared off the line and the officials did not judge it to have crossed the goal-line and play continued much to the relief of the home fans.

Just over ten minutes later, it was the turn of the home fans to think their team had scored when Gareth Taylor finished at the Kop end but only after a late flag had ruled him to be somewhat harshly offside.

However, any disappointment that Taylor may have felt after having the goal chalked off lasted just two minutes as the striker got his goal, and what a beauty it was.  After worming free down the Rovers right, Chris Shuker floated in the perfect cross and Gareth Taylor met it at the far post and made no mistake to give Rovers a lead they probably deserved.

Rovers scored again with virtually their next attack after Millwall had conceded a corner.  Chris Shuker played the ball into the area and it was eventually poked home by defender Chris McCready for his first goal for the Club since moving in the summer.

At 2-0 Rovers looked comfortable and Millwall made a tactical double-substitution after just 28 minutes.  Former Liverpool defender Zak Whitbread came on in place of Bakayogo and Ben May replaced Hubertz.

The substitution proved to be something of a masterstroke for a time with Shuker suddenly getting very little joy against new right-back Whitbread as the game swung slightly in favour of the visitors.

May almost scored with his first touch but Chris McCready became a hero at both ends by hooking the ball off the goal-line for Rovers second escape of the evening.

However Millwall got a goal back before the break when Chris Hackett exchanged passes with substitute May and seemingly waltzed through the Rovers defence before lofting the ball over Gavin Ward.

After a first full of good attacking football, it was nice to see the trend continue into the second half although the visitors could have equalised through Marvin Williams in the opening ten minutes of the half.

Chances fell at both ends with Taylor shooting just over for Rovers but as the second half wore on, Rovers were called to defend more often than they may have liked.  Goodison and McCready were strong at the back for Rovers supported by Sherriff, Thompson and Steve Davies tracking back and the back-line held firm.

The hard-working Davies was replaced on the left of midfield by Carl Tremarco with ten minutes remaining and shortly after, John Mullin fired wide for Rovers.

Rovers fans sensed a third goal may be needed and it came with a minute of normal time to go.  Richard Shaw made a slip at the back and Chris Shuker took advantage with an excellent low finish past former Chelsea goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley to make it 3-1 to Rovers.

Four minutes of injury time suddenly seemed better for Rovers than for Millwall and no further chances were taken  Rovers deserved the three points but were made to work hard for them by a decent Millwall side.

Rovers now move up to fourth place and have the comfort of knowing that the lowest position they could be in after tomorrow’s full set of League One fixtures is fifth place.

Chris Shuker – Run close by a great performance from Paul McLaren but for setting up one goal and scoring another Shuker gets the award.

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“It was a great game of football.  They opened up really bright, had a ten or fifteen minute spell where if we'd conceded a goal, there certainly would have been a game on.”

"Willie [Donachie] has a good team.  There's no doubt in my mind they'll cause a lot of teams a lot of problems.  We conceded a sloppy goal, but Hackett is a tricky player.  When May came on he caused us one or two problems, he is a Gareth Taylor-type player.”  

“They've got so much pace in their side but take a chance and leave themselves open.  That's what we worked on.  We thought they'd throw five or six forward, so if the ball wasn't right we had the keeper throwing balls out in the training session yesterday.  It worked for us.  Once we weathered the storm and got 2-0 up, I thought we were brilliant for a 20 minute spell.”

"In the second half we needed to come out brightly, but the game went off the boil a bit which helped us.  It was nice to see Shukes score, he put a great ball in for Gareth's goal.  He gave them a torrid time, and that's why they had to take the lad off after 28 minutes.  Once Whitbread had been booked, it was just a matter of Chris keeping at him.  Chris Greenacre worked his socks off.”

"For a team performance, it was as good as we've been. It puts a bit of pressure on the teams playing tomorrow." 

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