James O'Connor - Doncaster - Official PFA interview

Doncaster Rovers have come up from League One and caused problems for some of the Championship's biggest teams. After an opening day win over Derby, Rovers have beaten Coventry and drawn with Cardiff. Their slick passing game under manager Sean O'Driscoll has won admirers from all quarters this year. And Rovers' performance at Birmingham on Saturday deserved better after ten-man Blues snatched a 1-0 victory.

Givemefootball's Ian Clarkson caught up with Rovers' Birmingham-born defender James O'Connor to talk about the frustrating result at St Andrew's and Doncaster’s bid to stay up by playing football 'the right way'.

Q: IT WASN'T THE RIGHT RESULT BUT YOU COULDN'T HAVE DONE MUCH MORE COULD YOU?

It was frustrating for us and I thought we were playing well when it was 11 v 11, I felt we were on top then. They have got match winners all over the place, five or six strong players and they can all score goals. We switched off once and they finished us.

Q: THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE IS TYPICAL OF THE WAY YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING THIS SEASON THOUGH ISN'T IT?

We try and play the right way and I don't think we're going to change that. The one thing we have to learn is that set pieces are an important part of playing in this league, we'd found that already. We need to improve on that, I think we've conceded four goals like that now, it doesn't matter whether it's 10 v 11 at a set piece does it? You can still get punished.

Q: YOU'RE FROM THIS NECK OF THE WOODS, HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO SEE FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHILE YOU'VE BEEN DOWN HERE?

We've got a game on Tuesday so I had to get back to Donny. Maybe it was a good thing considering the result! I've got a lot of mates who are Blues fans though. It was good to come and play at St Andrew's, when you're playing you don't think about it. But you try and do well when you know there's family there.

Q: WHAT ABOUT MEHDI NAFTI'S SENDING OFF FOR BIRMINGHAM WHEN HE TACKLED JAMES COPPINGER, DID IT HELP YOU OR HARM YOU?
It did look reckless to be fair and not many of their lads complained, I'd have to see it on TV though. Copps (James Coppinger) is okay, he was sound and carried on anyway. He gets a few of them the type of player he is. It might even have got the crowd behind them and worked against us a little bit. The crowd might just have been about to turn on them. But going down to ten men gave them a siege mentality. But we've played against ten men before and if they’re organised then it’s hard.

Q: IT SEEMED LIKE YOU WOULD GET AN EQUALISER NEAR THE END. DID YOU FEEL THAT?

That would have been fair I think. I hope we can kick on this season, we've played five teams so far who would be thought of as promotion challengers and we haven't disgraced ourselves at all, but it’s been just five games so we can't rest on our laurels too much. This performance was good, we did well, but we have to say the result was very disappointing