RUFC - Which team will turn up at DVS tonight

Will the real Rotherham United please stand up?

That`s what I thought after watching the two-nil win over Southend on Friday night at Roots Hall.

Not even knowing if the game was definitely on, twenty-odd of us set off from Rotherham, braced the world`s largest car park that is the M25, slid and skidded over the uncleared snow to get into the ground and I don`t think even the optimists were being optimistic about getting a result.

But, how wrong we were! The Millers came out and passed the ball, defended as a team, went forward as a team and, yes, even sat in midfield and did what they had to do when they had to do it.

At half-time I enquired of a friend, 'who are these eleven players someone has put in Rotherham shirts?` to be reminded that it was only forty-five minutes and that`s all we`ve seemed able to play recently.

But, no, the second forty-five was even better. All eleven seemed up for it and, for the first time since the start of the season, looked like they actually wanted to win.

So, what was the difference?
- it can`t have been that we`d had a week off the weekend before to make us more lively, because it wasn`t the first blank weekend
- surely it can`t be the introduction of Shaun Harrad - one player, I`m sure, doesn`t make a team
- could it be that the players saw the fans and realised how far they`d had to travel and decided to put on a show for them?

I`m sure the management will say it`s because, finally, the players have done what they`ve been telling them to do.

I`ve heard whispers that there`s been unrest in the dressing room, that the players weren`t playing for the manager, that so-and-so and so-and-so don`t get on - well it certainly didn`t look like that on Friday night.

Was it the best performance I`d seen this season - well, yes I think it probably was.

So, what was the difference? I think it was because we played football. As simple as that.


I`m just hoping that the same team turn up tonight at Don Valley.







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