After only 9 minutes the match took an early dramatic turn. Anwar Uddin pushed Kyle Lightbourne while the two were in the 18-yard box and this resulted in the referee giving a penalty kick to the Silkmen. Matthew Tipton stepped up to take the spot kick and confidently tucked the ball in the corner to Howie's left while sending him the wrong way.
Within another 9 minute period, Rovers found themselves now facing a two goal deficit. This time midfielder Chris Byrne was the scorer after being the recipient of a fortunate deflection off of a team-mate into his path and neatly finishing past Howie who had no chance.
Despite The Pirates mustering a few corner kicks they came to nothing and the visitors were left without a shot on target throughout the entire first half.
The second 45 minutes, although still under par, was a slight improvement to the first half. This may have been partly inspired by an intelligent substitution by Graydon, taking off the ineffective McKeever and replacing him with the more defensive minded Christer Warren who was making his debut.
After his new team mates switched from a 4-4-2 formation to 5-3-2, Warren took little time to settle in and progressed nicely down the left wing and saw his accurate cross to Tait headed wide. With Rovers looking increasingly dangerous Danny Boxall was next in line to try his luck and saw his decent long distance effort go just wide yet not troubling Macclesfield 'keeper Steve Wilson. Tait was again involved and knocked down a Challis cross for Grazioli who tried the spectacular, only to see his volley go wide of Wilson's post.
After 72 minutes of play the visitors were gifted a goal after a mistake at the back for the Silkmen. Bryant won the ball and fed it through for Carlisle and the ex-Palace midfielder made no mistake in slotting it past Wilson for what seemed like no more than a consolation goal.
Seeing a possible away point now in sight, Rovers started to push forward even more but before they could do anything else the team had Howie to thank twice for halting two attacks from the Silkmen.
New skipper Adam Barrett struck a majestic shot that had to be expertly touched over by the increasingly busy Wilson. From the resulting corner 'keeper Scott Howie decided to make an appearance in the home team's penalty box but there was to be no spectacular drama to end the game as the corner went out for a goalkick and with little other action within the remaining time the referee blew for the close of the match with the scores at 2-1 after a rather disappointing showing from Bristol Rovers.

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