County v Doncaster: Match Thread (04/03/2023)

So, what do we know about Donny? Well they came down from L1 last season and so far this they have performed roughly as well, or indifferently, as I thought they would. They sit in 12th P 32 W 14 D 4 L 14 F 36 A 43. Their A form is similarly undistinguished: P 16 W 5 D 3 L 8 F 14 A 25, which puts them 15th in the A table.

The Ws are 0-1 at Northampton, 1-2 at Rochdale 1-3 at Grimsby, 0-1 at Newport and 0-2 at Swindon. The Ds are 0-0 at Bratfut, 2-2 at Wombledon and 1-1 at Crewe. The Ls are 2-0 at Barrow (Boooo!), 2-1 at Hartlepool, 3-0 at Carlisle, 3-0 at Colchester, 3-0 at Tranmere, 1-0 at Orient, 4-1 at Mansfield and 2-0 at Sutton Utd.

So the only scalp there is Northampton Town on opening day. With 36 goals in 32 games it's clear scoring has been a problem. Top scorer is George Miller on 9 league goals, then MF Kyle Hurst on 6, Harrison Biggins (son of Wa*ne) on 4 Kieron Agard on 3. Ben Close, James Maxwell and Luke Molyneux each have 2 and a further six players have just the one goal, one of these being Kyle Knowle of this parish and another being Tommy Rowe formerly of this parish. Looking at the player profiles there doesn't seem to be a lot of height in this squad which may explain some of the difficulty in scoring.

Donny were active in the window signing former Scunthorpe forward Caolan Lavery (9 goals in 19 Apps) who joins his 12th Club, including both Sheffield ones) on an 18 month contract. They also loaned Leicester's D Ben Nelson, Blackburn's RB James Brown (yes, that one), Burton Albion's MF Charlie Lakin and Brighton F Todd Miller. Of course Donny lost Kyle Knoyle to County and then lost MF Adam Clayton to Bratfut.

Their League form in 2023 has also been indifferent - W 4 (Barrow, Carlisle and Tranmere, all at H and Swindon A) and L 5 (Orient, Mansfield and Sutton all A plus Bratfut and Hartlepool both at H). Scoring F 8 and A 10, with 3 clean sheets.

It's very hard to parse much out of that, they seem to be an up and down team. Online comments suggest that their fans think they are quite good in possession but struggle to score. All in all a game where the first goal really would make a difference. I suspect County will rise from the shambles of last weekend and lay a bit of a smackdown on Donny, fingers crossed anwyay.

Interesting line up, same basic formation I guess but Horsfall for Byrne, Rydel for Hippolite, Davenport for Croasdale, and Sarcevic for Camps...... Madden on the bench, no rush, ease him back in I guess.....

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Definitely 2 dropped points. that one. A very negative side in Doncaster, time-wasting early on, should have been sent packing with nothing. But, ultimately, we did too little to deserve the 3 points ourselves and the match was a rather dull, passive, affair.


Our opening 15 was bright, Knoyle and Sarcevic looking especially dangerous. The former put in a lovely ball in that 'corridor' but not a single player was making an aggresive run seeking out such a ball in.

Hussey on the other side found Rydel with a pull back, and he in turn centred it to Collar's left foot in the box. Unfortunately he couldn't sort himself to steer his shot properly and put it well wide. Rydel was involved again, outjumping Brown at the back stick on a nice ball in from the right.

Somehow we allowed them to cut us apart from a throw in that had them running at our defence - baffling stuff positionally from the midfield that one. Anyway, the half largely fizzled out.

Into the 2nd and a horrible ball from Hussey towards Rydel should have been punished but we got away with it. Hussey made amends shortly after with an absolutely terrific block, throwing himself in the way of a goal-bound shot and getting badly winded. It was the kind if moment (like a fine tackle) that I hope ignites the team but... no.

Their 'keeper pulled off what looked to be a good save at the RE and we generally huffed and puffed without quality for the rest of the game. Hippolyte brought a bit of energy and Croasdale's simple touch and pass did at least get the ball moving quicker than Davenport had achieved up to that point.

But a stalemate it was and we have to play more than a good 15 minutes on Tuesday ... which we are capable of, of course!

Better than Barrow was something to be expected but we got little from the game. Their keeper did a double save from Rydel I think, and a couple of other decent saves. We had 62% possession, too much tapping it around and backwards, and could have been a bit more creativity from us. Good to see Horsfall back wining most headers. However I suppose 1 point is better than none...

We need to find a way of breaking open these defensive minded teams. Sure they came for a draw today.

Footnote - Doncaster got away with so much pushing and manhandling due to a poorish ref. Stamp it out early on and it would have been a better match.