Scunthorpe boss Graham Alexander was disappointed to concede late on but he takes plenty of positives from his sides’ performance against Bristol Rovers.
Ellis Harrison’s injury-time goal earned Bristol Rovers a point from their game with League One promotion-chasers Scunthorpe at the Memorial Stadium.
The striker converted Liam Sercombe’s cross from the right with a low finish from inside the six-yard box to secure a result his side barely deserved.
Scunthorpe took the lead when Duane Holmes stole in behind Rovers’ defence after 61 minutes to sweep Funso Ojo’s low ball past Adam Smith with his left foot.
After the match, Alexander provided his assessment to iFollow Iron.
He said “It was a bitter pill to swallow because we should be going back with three points. We defended quite comfortably I felt, with what we had to face, and I believe that physically we stood up to the challenge. We got a fantastic goal and for 91 minutes I felt it was the perfect away performance.”
“We just got done right at the end. I haven’t had a chance to watch the goal back yet but I’ll have to see if there’s anything we can improve on. It was disappointing to concede so late on in the game because we were relatively in control.”
“Sometimes football is a cruel mistress and it’s certainly been cruel to us today, but there was a lot of good stuff from today’s performance. We knew we should have taken three points today, but we’ll take the positive stuff from today and bring it into next week’s game (against Oldham Athletic).”
He added his thoughts on the physical challenge and the chances to extend the lead.
“We knew what type of game it would be. This is a really tough venue to come to and we wanted a response, and to see an improvement on the defensive side of it to give us the best chance of winning. We certainly did that, and I felt we were very strong and stuck to the task.”
“If there’s a criticism of the team today, it’s that I felt we should have improved on the lead when we went 1-0 up. I thought we had the chances to score a second and possibly a third. Unfortunately, we didn’t take advantage in the attacking scenarios as much as we could have.”
