Darlo bowl Bristol (R)Over
6 February 2007
Bristol Rovers 1 Darlington 2
The Quakers gave a polished display of passing and movement that made Rovers look second best for much of the game so it came as no surprise early on that Darlington took the lead. In the seventh minute Gregg Blundell broke through the Rovers defence but his shot was saved by Phillips only for the ball to rebound back to the Darlington player and back into the net.
Darlington played some neat passing football in the first half, but it was Rovers who created the better chances. Rickie Lambert hit the crossbar with a near-post chip after only two minutes, while Andy Sandell's follow-up effort appeared to come back off a post. Lambert had a powerful 25th minute header saved by former Rovers keeper Lee Jones, who was one of the stars for Darlington. He did even better to claw away a 34th minute header from Craig Hinton following a Stuart Campbell free-kick.
At the other end, the visitors might have increased their lead on 43 minutes when Blundell got behind the Rovers defence and crossed for Alun Armstrong, who miscued his effort as the ball arrived just behind him.
Michael Cummins produced a superb 70th minute goal to clinch the points for impressive Darlington. The midfielder picked his spot from the corner of the box and saw his effort float over goalkeeper Steve Phillips before hitting the inside of the far post and going in.
Try as they might, Rovers could not get back in the match, however they did get a consolation goal when Craig Disley blasted home a shot from 12 yards in the dying moments.
Four minutes of injury-time gave the home side some hope, but their only chance of that period fell to centre-back Steve Elliott who fired over from the edge of the box.
There were 87 hardy Darlington fans in the crowd of 5,511 and they must have enjoyed the way their team moved the ball around to protect their lead in the second half.
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