Glovers 1 Doncaster 0

The Glovers went into the SkyBet Championship game knowing that nothing short of victory against another side troubled by relegation concerns would be good enough, the time for three points to be collected regularly has come.

A deficit was reduced to five points between ourselves and Doncaster after we gained a 1-0 win, which was our first win at Huish Park this year.

New loan signing from Huddersfield Duane Holmes was brought in for his Glovers debut after his signing earlier in the week, this had to happen really as Gary Johnson had spoken highly of the midfielder and said his chance would come and it duly did.

If we’d taken more of the chances we’d missed we would be sitting pretty in midtable, but as we haven’t that’s why we’re battling for SkyBet Championship survival and this was again the case for most of the first half as chances came and went.

Ishmael Miller, so often a danger to sides, was guilty of an early miss but a great concern will now be his injury. The striker was forced off after only 10 minutes were played with a hamstring problem, being replaced by Kieffer Moore.

Doncaster were making a game of it mind and it wasn’t all one way traffic but it was left down to former Glovers goalkeeper Sam Johnstone, who was with us for a brief time earlier this season, to brilliantly save from Byron Webster.

At the other end Jordan Bowery threatened to put Doncaster ahead but Shane Duffy blocked his effort well with Johnstone saving well a couple more times with Moore and Mark Duffy both guilty of becoming the latest Glovers players to prove wasteful in front of goal.

Tom Lawrence went from provider, as he had been in the first half, to finisher but his header from a Holmes cross was weak and didn’t trouble Johnstone at all before Holmes was brought down to give us the chance to take the lead.

James Husband brought Holmes down in the box and a penalty was awarded.

Former Doncaster hero James Hayter took responsibility and unlike the previous penalty we had, against Leeds when Miller could have put us two up against Leeds recently, the experienced striker made no mistake.

Wasteful finishing gets annoying but sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and praise the opposition and this is something that had to be done for Johnstone again soon after the goal as he saved well from Moore’s header. Perhaps Moore should have scored by it was a fine save.

Kevin Dawson, one of the ‘fringe players’ challenged by Johnson to be more consistent, almost secured the points with a later header but this came back off the bar but it didn’t make any difference in the end as The Glovers, relatively unchallenged in the end, were able to see out the win.

Could this first SkyBet Championship win at Huish Park since December 3rd could prove the turning point of our season?

The two previous games at home that ended in draws were points lost really but with an unbeaten run growing now perhaps this win can provide us with the confidence to get more and we’ve got another couple of key home games against sides battling against relegation coming up at Huish Park in the coming weeks.

Chances keep being created but we’ve now got to take a lot more of them.