After Rovers battled through the wintery conditions to earn a well-deserved 1-0 win at Gresty Road in their FA Cup 2nd Round replay against Crewe Alexandra, Rovers manager Tony Mowbray summed up his thoughts on the potential banana skin of a game with the club’s media team.
“We got there in the end, and now we can look forward to play at home on Saturday. We’ve seen the draw and we’re happy enough with Hull at home in January. I thought the players applied themselves really well, especially with the weather not allowing the pitch to run as we would have liked. I felt the concentration defensively was very good. They gambled by playing a high-line tonight, which is something I would have deterred from if I was playing better quality opposition, but we managed to get the job done. It was a good test, a good opportunity for some youngsters to get a game and they came through with flying colours.
“We had a lot of half-chances, where, if the last pass was a bit better, we would have ended up with more than the one goal, but we came close with them miss-kicking a few balls and our lads getting some decent headers on target. We asked lots of questions of them, yet it wasn’t as convincing a win, as I would have liked, as I would have enjoyed going into the last ten minutes with a two or three goal lead. They managed to threaten late on with their physicality, but we managed to see it out.
“Danny Graham’s real bit of quality has ultimately won us the game. I can’t heap enough praise on Danny because he’s been so used to being the main man upfront and now he has to compete with the likes of (Dominic) Samuel, (Bradley) Dack, (Marcus) Antonsson and (Joe) Nuttall, but he’s been the consummate professional. He’s not moaned, not sulked, has accepted my decisions and has just got on with it and performed like he has done tonight, and if he keeps performing at that level, he’ll be playing a lot more. He’s invaluable to the younger players in the squad. Nuttall is someone who can learn off him, as we were telling Joe at half-time, but Danny, naturally, is willing to help, which makes the job a lot easier.
“I’m very pleased with the youngster’s performances. Joe, Willem (Tomlinson), Lewis (Travis) and Sam (Hart) all did well tonight. I’m disappointed that Nuttall didn’t score, for him more than anything because he worked tirelessly and at times overworked himself, all game. They all did really well however and I’m happy with the contributions they’ve all made and hopefully they enjoyed being part of the first-team set-up.”
