The Sporting Hack

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 ...

Valentine’s spirit will soon make way for FA Cup romance this weekend as fans of League 1 club Doncaster Rovers could see their side break new ground when they face Premier League outfit Crystal Palace. It wasn’t so much Cupid’s arrow as Ian Wright’s hand which bequeathed Doncaster a home tie against former England boss Roy Hodgson’s side and it is they who stand in the way of the Yorkshiremen penning a previously untold chapter in their 140-year history. A win against the two-time runners up would present the play-off hopefuls with another sizeable cash injection – doubling their prize money alone to a figure in the region of £750,000 – but the scent of history making is what appeals most to 22 goal striker, John Marquis. “Whether this Doncaster team does or doesn’t get through, we’ve already made a bit of history in being the first for 63 years (to get to the fifth round) but if we can just go that next step then in 50 or 60 years from now, people will hopefully be talk...

Doncaster Rovers 1-1 Rotherham United EFL SkyBet League 1 Keepmoat Stadium, Doncaster (Att: 12,428) Saturday 11 November 2017 Rotherham snatched a point with the last kick of this encounter against bitter South Yorkshire rivals Doncaster. The Millers dug in to the very dark depths of their reserves to register an equaliser in the 96 th minute thanks to their on-loan hit man Kieffer Moore (right). In a region where a spade is called a spade, there was little getting away from the fact that it was a scrappy match that looked as though it was going to be decided by Richard Wood’s own goal just after the hour. If familiarity breeds contempt, then the absence of each other’s presence for close to eleven years led to Doncaster and Rotherham struggling to work each other out for the best part of the opening half an hour. Only James Coppinger’s well taken finish – which was ruled out for offside – and a half-hearted appeal for a penalty, when striker John Marquis took a...