Rovers returned to winning ways on Sunday afternoon, as they put in a fantastic counter-attacking display to down Watford, earning their first away clean-sheet of 2023 in the process. A delighted Jon Dahl Tomasson reflected on the lunchtime meeting and expressed his delight to RoversTV at gaining all three points.
“I’m extremely delighted with the performance and result. The discipline in defending was really good. I think Watford only had two or three shots on target throughout the whole game. We knew it was going to be difficult coming here, because Watford have a lot of quality players, so I changed the way of thinking regarding the game. We focussed on the transition, of which we had a lot of moments in the first-half, that I believe we should have done better with. The lack of quality and poor decision-making in the final third is what let us down in the first-half. I was disappointed about that, but I told the players at the break that if they stick to the plan and continue doing the right things, they keep getting opportunities in the second-half, which came true. It was a great win, we scored a great goal, we had three teenagers on the pitch and three on the bench and (Andrew) Moran got his first minutes for the club.
“It was great to see nearly 1,000 fans and it was also great to hear the tribute for Matt (Sillitoe) on 30 minutes. It’s incredibly sad to hear that he passed away at such at young age, but the heartfelt actions of the club & (Lewis) Travis to his sister & their family was lovely to see. Hopefully, we gave the family a bit of joy during a very difficult period.
“The players were excellent, but they’re good boys. They’re working hard, but you can see we’re still stretched. Hopefully, Joe (Rankin-Costello) isn’t injured, I don’t know yet, so we’ll have to wait and see. The full-backs are a position where we’re lacking players, but it was a brilliant performance overall.
“The goal from Ryan (Hedges) was excellent! He took it on his right-foot, which surprised me! I told him he should shoot with the right more than the left, as he’ll probably score more! It was a good finish, but also a good transitional move. I was disappointed not to be leading 3-0 at half-time, to be honest as we had plenty of good transitional moments, and we knew that if we remained disciplined and kept defending well, those moments would come, but the lack of quality, passing and decision-making in the final third wasn’t always the best. Yet, it was great to see us take the chance that we did, because it was a fantastic goal. I’m delighted with the performance, the three points and the clean-sheet.
“If you come away to such a good team in Watford, who have great individual and dangerous players, you need to be disciplined defensively, but they only had two or three shots on target, which meant we were doing something correct as a team. We knew they would probably dominate the possession, so we knew that we had to be solid defensively; it was a big shift from the lads who performed excellently, so they deserve all the credit.
“Dominic (Hyam) is a leader, both on and off the pitch. He’s an excellent player and I’m delighted with him. He almost always plays a good game, which is nice to have. It’s nice to have a player with his experience in the team. He’s a brilliant player and a very important player for the team, he was fit for most of last season and is one of those players – alongside Lewis – who can play 46 games without any problems.
“Lewis was very tired at the end and he came off with cramp. I was debating whether or not to make that substitution and bring Jake (Garrett) on, because normally, that adds on another 30 seconds to the game, when you make a substitution! But it was a risk to leave him on, whether that’s because he could have gotten injured, or because his cramp harmed his mobility. Everyone put in a big shift and it was a brilliant performance.”
