By Deadly Submarine
July 27 2005

Rovers recorded their second home friendly victory of the pre-season campaign with yet another clean sheet as they overcame Crewe with two second half strikes. After a relatively drab first 45 minutes, Rovers lifted their game a little more in the second half and they eventually got their reward.

 

New signing Chris Greenacre scored hopefully his first of many goals at Prenton Park and youngster Steven Davies added a second and his fourth of the pre-season campaign to ensure that Rovers had a relatively comfortable win over Championship side Crewe Alexandra.

 

Rovers Boss Brian Little fielded a strong side from the start with a strikeforce of Greenacre and Zola whilst Paul Linwood again filled the right back berth recently vacated by Ryan Taylor’s move to Wigan Athletic.  Iain Hume was absent with a back injury whilst the absence of Eugene Dadi fuelled the rumours that he has left or is about to leave the Club.

 

Crewe’s new signing Michael Boulding was the first player to have a chance after five minutes but his shot was weak and therefore an easy take for John Achterberg.  Zola took up the opportunity of a starting place in Hume’s absence and worked hard, perhaps almost too hard at times but seemed to be linking well with Chris Greenacre.

 

Zola had a good chance on six minutes but shot wide and then had another good headed chance from a Jason McAteer cross which the Alex keeper collected with ease.  In between, Boulding had another chance for the visitors but his shot trickled wide.

 

As Rovers began to gain something of a grip on the game, the chances all seemed to be falling to the men in white.  Calvin Zola’s excellent work down the left hand edge of the penalty created a shooting chance for Mark Rankine but his shot was knocked away by the keeper for a corner.

 

From another corner, Ian Sharps headed wide just after the half hour mark before Gareth Roberts flashed a shot across goal and wide.  A turn and shot from Chris Greenacre looked like a certain goal but the ball was acrobatically turned away by Williams in the Crewe goal.   The first half ended goalless and despite the chances, the half had seemed to drag and had little excitement.

 

The second half was a different story as Rovers came out of the blocks quite quickly and after just two minutes, Gareth Roberts had a shot that was easily saved before Chris Greenacre was mightily unlucky right in front of goal.  A ball across from the right looked set to fall to Greenacre unmarked and just a few yards out but the ball was agonisingly out of reach of the striker and the chance passed.

 

On 73 minutes, Rovers replaced McAteer and Rankine with Jennings and Harrison but it was the introduction of Paul Brown in place of Sam Aiston just three minutes before that seemed to make a difference to Rovers’ play.

 

It was from a free-kick by Brown on 78 minutes that Rovers took the lead when the youngster’s long kick forward was met by the head of Chris Greenacre and Williams was beaten the delight of the home crowd.

 

Two minutes after scoring, Greenacre was replaced by Steven Davies, who already had three pre-season goals to his name.  Three became four just two minutes after coming on when he doubled the lead with almost his first touch.   Again Paul Brown was the creator as he ran free on the right and with Steve Davies pleading for the ball in the area, Brown obliged giving Davies a relatively easy finish for 2-0.

 

Overall Rovers were relatively comfortable during the game with any Crewe threat dealt with reasonably well.