It was heartache for Bristol Rovers in the Johnstone Paints Trophy Final on Sunday as they lost a five-goal thriller against Doncaster at the Millennium Stadium. The Pirates had knocked out bitter rivals Bristol City over two fiercely contested legs in the semi finals and supporters were hoping they could spring an upset against higher ranked opposition again. However, it looked a long shot when they fell 2-0 down within five minutes, although a rip-roaring recovery saw them pull level through Richard Walker and Sammy Igoe. With the game ebbing and flowing it looked as though penalties might be the final answer until Doncaster's Graeme Lee thundered home a header to break Rovers' hearts. A crowd of 59,000 were there enjoying the atmosphere and for Craig Hinton it was the biggest match of his career thus far.Givemefootball's Ian Clarkson caught up with Hinton for an exclusive chat about the build-up an aftermath of one of the best games seen at the Millennium Stadium for many a year.
Q:WHAT WAS THE BUILD-UP TO THE FINAL LIKE?
A:It's only about an hour away from Bristol so we travelled down the day before and trained at Cardiff's training ground. We stopped in the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel and had an early night as it was easily the biggest game of my career. I wasn't nervous – more a sense of excitement and expectation – but I was aware of the importance of the occasion. Some of the lads got phone calls to their rooms at 3am and we have no idea who that was but I still think everyone was ready as they all managed to get back to sleep again fairly quickly.
Q:DID MANY OF YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS ATTEND THE GAME?
A:There were around 20 of my family and friends there and around 38,000 Bristol Rovers supporters. The atmosphere was brilliant on the way to the game as we saw all the supporters outside the ground and it didn't disappoint inside the stadium either. It was so loud you literally couldn't hear what your teammates were saying a lot of the time and I think that added to the sense of excitement.
Q:WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AFTER FIVE MINUTES WHEN YOU TRAILED BY TWO GOALS?
A:That's not printable! Something along the lines of 'Oh blimey!' I was just hoping that we wouldn't embarrass ourselves and that we needed to pull our finger out. We did from that moment on and produced some of the best football we had played all season. We tend to play better against sides from higher divisions as we battered Derby in the FA Cup and ended up losing 1-0 so we were always confident we could give a good account of ourselves but it looked dubious after five minutes.
Q:CASTING YOUR MIND BACK TO THE SEMI FINAL – WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE OF BEATING YOUR LOCAL RIVALS LIKE?
A:The semi final victory over Bristol City made our supporters extremely happy. I am sure they were disappointed we lost against Doncaster – as were we – but there is a small crumb of comfort that we managed to beat City in front of 11,000 fans at the Memorial Stadium. I thought the atmosphere that night was incredible but the atmosphere at the Millennium was comparable. However, the post-match party was very flat as no-one was really in the mood for having fun.
Q:WHAT POSITIVES CAN YOU TAKE FROM THE DEFEAT?
A:We were very disappointed to lose but we can certainly take some positives from the game. We created more chances than we have probably done all season, even though we have been scoring goals, and we need to take that form into our remaining league fixtures. We need to win the majority of our remaining seven league games to have any chance of making the play-offs but we have to aim high. This Saturday's league game at Mansfield is probably as big as the game with Doncaster.
