Doncaster Rovers 3-3 Ipswich Town

I love playing Ipswich. I usually leave the ground after the match with a grin on my face, and today was not an exception.

This was the third time I had ever seen Ipswich Town. When we were a League Two side I saw us take-apart the Championship side in a Carling Cup tie. It was a superb performance, and one that will stick in my memory. I witnessed potentially the best solo goal I have ever seen from Jermaine McSporren that night, and it was also one of the best atmospheres I witnessed from the Belle Vue' Pop.

Last season we met Ipswich with ourselves tied down to a lowly position in the table. We were winless in 13 games, and had just bought a new centre back, Sheldon Martis, on loan from West Brom. The relief from that victory was the seeds of our great escape that we executed after christmas.

Those two matches had one main factor in common, they were both Rovers win. Unfortunately after today I can't say the same.

I think we were below par today. Yet there isn't a single individual that I will point the blame at. I think the absence of Brian Stock was a loss. We lacked a defensive midfielder, and Hird was playing too defensively to really be compared. It was 5-3-2 rather than the diamond formation. There was a large space between the midfield and the defence, and that is why the scoreline happened.

I've come back to comments of 'what a great match', but to be honest I thought the first half was a pretty poor spectacle. We weren't at our best, but took the lead through Wade Fairhurst. It was a mess-up by Richard Wright in the Ipswich goal who dropped the ball straight to Fairhurst who performed an over-head kick after the bounce.

Fairhurst is probably going to play in the Premiership. I know I've said that before, and Matt Mills or Paul Green look like living up to my expectations. But he is aware, has a good pass, can hold up the ball and obviously can shoot. He is Sharp's ideal partner, and from what I saw today he is better than Billy.

We were the worse side in the first half. For long patches, we sat back and allowed Ipswich to come onto us. I saw Cardiff last time out, and I'm drawing similarities between those two teams. They seem to lack power in the shot, they struggle to get beyond our strong, organised defence and both rely on goal mouth scrambles if they want to find the net.

The latter was how Ipswich got the goals they did today. All three goals were from corners. For their first goal, the ball was played across goal and Jack Colbeck was able to send a shot into the bottom corner.

For most of the second half we dominated. The goal came against the run of play. We were cruising in fact, we just got caught out at a set piece - which has happened all to often this season.

Our second was also beautiful. A corner at the other end was played to edge of the box, and Martin Woods found the corner. It was a fantastic strike. I've seen too many of Woods' shot go over the cross bar, but he kept it down and it was a pleasing site. The problem is, we've always had a man on the edge of the area, for the best part of three seasons - why have we never passed to that man before? I have been told about Gary Brabin, who used to play for us. He used to stand on the edge of the box and it would be played to 'Sumo' and he was slot it away everytime.

It was a furious few minutes. As we took the lead we made changes. We took Fairhurst off to a warm applause from the crowd, and also Sam Hird. On came Quinton Fortune and Dean Sheils. Attacking minded changes, presumably decided before we had retaken the lead.

Straight from the kick-off Ipswich won another corner, and Thomas Priskin was there to header the ball beyond Neil Sullivan who dived the wrong way. Then suddenly they had the lead. Another corner (notice a patten), and the ball was poked in beyond Neil Sullivan by Lee Martin at the near post. A defensive mix-up which presumably the substitutes had effected.

When the whole of the ground were stunned and dejected, believing that any result was now potentially beyond them, Sean O'Driscoll would have been at fault for the result, and his subsitutions having a really bad effect. We were winning when Fairhurst went off, and now we only had one striker on the pitch. But O'Driscoll went from villian to hero in the 84th minute, when the best goal of the lot was scored.

Subsitute Quinton Fortune found the ball at his feet on the left hand side of the penalty area. The veteran conned the defender and jinxed inside. Launching a shot at goal. His celebration tells a story. He ran to the touchline and jumped on one of the coaches. The goal meant the world to him, as it did to the supporters.

It would have been three points dropped in a game we dominated for large spells. As it was it was only two, which is still bad. But as Mr O'Driscoll we can still 'take a lot of positives from the defeat'.