The Sporting Hack

Towels wrapped around their waists, one by one the Doncaster Rovers players returned to the makeshift dressing room at Bristol Rovers’ Memorial Ground. On show were drooped shoulders, slovenly gaits and bare midriffs. Doncaster had been cruelly exposed by the worst team in the division. Promotion aspirants? Not likely. Where once young cubs stood and bared their teeth, meek kittens eloped up the barren terrace. By Easter Monday, their race was run - season over - and it showed. The collective body language was rotten and awkward glances were exchanged. However, the words tumbled freely from the mouth of seasoned campaigner James Coppinger in the post-match debrief. He couldn’t help himself. He justifiably poured lashings of salt in to wounds prised open by the hosts following a 2-1 loss. “We’re just not good enough as individuals. We were absolutely miles off it,” was the excruciatingly accurate summation. No fairy tale ending for Coppinger This season was veteran Coppinge...

EFL SkyBet League 1 Keepmoat Stadium, Doncaster (Att: 6,907) Tuesday 26 March 2019 Not quite at the stage of having to pull rabbits out of the hat to maintain their play-off push, Doncaster ensured they took maximum advantage of their ace up their sleeve - a game in hand – to return to the much sought after sixth spot. Veteran magician James Coppinger helped himself to a couple of goals as the hosts cast a spell over Graham Coughlan’s bamboozled outfit. The Dubliner looked on forlornly while his opposite number, Belfast-born Grant McCann, marvelled at the performance of a man just nine months his junior. Coppinger, the old hand, relaxed a slightly anxious crowd early on when, with less than three minutes gone, he turned 12 yards out and saw his left footed shot squirm meekly underneath the body of visiting ‘keeper Jack Bonham. By the quarter hour mark, Coppinger had doubled his nights – and, in fact, his season’s – goal tally in far more emphatic fashion to put ...