Sam Finley gave a brutally honest evaluation of both Bristol Rover’s overall performance and his own during the team’s loss against Lincoln City.
The top-ranked Imps dominated the Sky Bet League One match on Saturday, winning 5-0 at the LNER Stadium after grabbing a three-goal lead before the interval.
Rovers had their own opportunities as well; in the first half, Finley, Chris Martin, and Jevani Brown all came close to scoring, while in the second half, Antony Evans missed a penalty kick.
Finley acknowledged that the game’s poor start was a major contributing cause to the Gas’s defeat, but it was eventually the slow start that proved to be fatal.
The skipper stated, “We didn’t start well.” “We struggled to understand the game and we didn’t
However, the Gas were ultimately undone by a slow start to the game, something Finley conceded was a driving factor in the defeat.
“We didn’t start well,” the captain said. “We didn’t get to grips with the game and we didn’t win our individual battles. We weren’t organised and we were caught on the backfoot straight away. We’ve lost the game in the first half.
“Those goals were avoidable. We knew, before the game, what good form they were in. We still had chances in the first half and we could have had three goals ourselves, chances that players usually take for us, but it wasn’t to be today. It wasn’t our day.
A good spell just before half-time gave hope to the travelling Rovers supporters but Lincoln would find the net twice more in the second half, extending their own unbeaten run to 13 league matches.
“It’s always difficult when your opposition have got their tails up,” Finley continued. “It’s okay to say things like ‘let’s keep a clean-sheet in the second half’ but we know how good they’ve been recently – they’ve been flying – and with the deficit we’ve already got it was always going to be tough. They’re a good side that makes chances, so it was tough.”
With eight games remaining in Sky Bet League One, Finley insisted he and the Rovers squad would be putting in the hard work to ensure as strong an end to the campaign as possible.
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