Following Rovers’ hard fought 0-0 draw away at promotion rivals Wigan Athletic, Tony Mowbray reflected on the game with the club’s media team as he spoke about the incident which resulted in the sending off of Elliott Bennett. The manager also talked about the general play of the side, as well as what he thought the players did well on.
“My feelings at the moment are of both satisfaction and disappointment; we have to be happy to take a point considering we finished with 9 men. I thought the team put in some fantastic effort, right from the first whistle; we were on the front-foot, asking questions of them and closing them down and on the hour mark, I thought that, if there was going to be a winner, it was going to be us. I think we were starting to build some momentum during the first few minutes in the second half and were asking some questions of their defenders, but the sending off changed everything; it put us on the back-foot and pushed them higher up the pitch. Despite that, we still carried a threat, I thought Danny Graham was going to play (Paul) Caddis in to score which would of given us a 1-0 win, but there’s frustration there as we went down to 9 men as Harry Chapman went off injured and then we had to hang on and defend, which we did very well.
“The referee’s decision was a sad one really, as with a game involving two big sides at this level, everybody just ends up talking about the officials, it shouldn’t be the case and yet having watched the incident back, just because there might not have been any contact, I definitely don’t think it’s a yellow card because he either smashes into their lad and they both get injured, or he gets out of the way of a hanging leg and if the referee didn’t think it was a foul, then he could have just played on and let the game flow. I don’t know why he felt he had to make a decision like that. Elliott’s (Bennett) devastated in the dressing room and I think the decision took the opportunity of winning the game away from us. It’s okay though, Wigan Athletic away is not an easy game as we know and there’s a slight tinge of disappointment that we didn’t get another 1-0 win away against one of the division’s top teams.
“I’m not sure what the referee did to be honest, but it’s done, I think a lesson for young officials is to be more humble about how they go about their job. They should have communication lines with the players and have some respect out on the pitch for each other and I’m not sure the respect was both ways today. I don’t want to be overcritical; I think they’re young guys learning their trade. I do think that if I was assessing the referee today, I’d be talking about his body language, making sure he feels that he can talk and have discussions with the players and the management.
“There is not a more honest footballer that I’ve worked with in over 15 years of management, than Elliott Bennett, but the referee doesn’t know that and yet it was one of those situations that we have to deal with. It’s frustrating, it’s disappointing and Elliott’s really disappointed. The referees will have a look at the game and they’ll assess it, hopefully they think that it was the wrong decision, which they probably won’t as they’d probably think it was a great decision, but we all have to accept it as it is how modern football is. The difficulty for us is that we miss Elliott for the next game but I could also look at it from a positive view by saying that he needs a rest as he’s played just about every minute for us. So it’s a good opportunity for him to rest up and get ready to go again.
“I thought we were good all game. In the first half, we were fantastic at pressing and I thought we took the game to them and played on the front-foot and when you study Wigan to see how they play, they generally pass every team to death then take advantage. We took their fluency away as the midfield were exceptionally good at pressing and working really hard. I think it was a good performance despite not giving the fans the reward of managing to win it.”
Mowbray was asked about the hamstring injury that Harry Chapman sustained towards the closing minutes of the game which saw Rovers see out the game with only 9 men on the field.
“The news on Harry isn’t good. He’s never had a hamstring injury before so we’ll have to scan him. He’s only a young boy and unless you know him, you don’t know how immature he can be at times. He’ll have to learn about his own body, but what we do know is that he’s a fast-twitch footballer who can run and change speed and those types of players are at times, more vulnerable to hamstring strains.
“The bottom-line is that, he’s not our player; we have to be very careful with him and we have to make sure he’s 100% right to play. I would suggest he’ll hopefully be back in 4 to 6 weeks’ time. It’s a blow because everybody’s seen the impact he makes when he starts or comes off the bench. I think he can make the difference for us at home, especially when teams come and sit in, we can put him on when they tire and let him run at them. We have to accept his absence and keep going.”
