A Cumbrian Challenge

It seems that some of the longest trips in Bristol Rovers season have all coincidentally been placed together. Last weekend the Gas made a 272 mile trip up to play Hartelpool United, where a late, late show saw them come from 2-0 down with five minutes left to take a point away from County Durham with a point. And this weekend it's the opposition that make the long journey, Carlisle United visiting from Cumbria. Following that is Plymouth away, a long enough trip for a Tuesday night and ending up with an FA Cup tie at Darlington, but the focus for now is that upcoming Carlisle game.

Memorial Stadium to Victoria Park, Hartlepool - 272 miles, 4 hours 40 minutes
Brunton Park, Carlisle to Memorial Stadium - 274 miles, 4 hours 29 minutes
Memorial Stadium to Home Park, Plymouth - 126 miles, 2 hours 13 minutes
Memorial Stadium to Echo Arena, Darlington - 260 miles, 4 hours 24 minutes

Games between the two sides have been both tight and high scoring over the past two seasons, 16 goals in the last four matches and this season should prove to be no different. The two sides sit four places apart in the current league table but are still both on 19 points, showing how close the battle in the top half of League 1 will bee this season. Of the five teams that have gained 19 points thus far Rovers sit at the bottom of the pack with a goal difference of -2, scoring 16 and conceding 18 while the Cumbrians have a very healthy GD of +6, leaking just eleven goals.

Carlisle P13 GD+6 PTS19
Rochdale P13 GD+5 PTS19
Exeter P13 GD-2 PTS19
Charlton P13 GD-2 PTS19
Rovers P13 GD-2 PTS19

With Rovers struggling to defend and Carlisle being completely the opposite it's fair to say that the away side could very well come away with the win although recent form would suggest a slim Gas win, shown by the 7/5 odds offered by SkyBet. The form table for League 1 puts Rovers in third, behind only the top two in Brighton and Bournemouth while Carlisle are in a meager 17th place, all change from the start of the season.

Carlisle set off like a house on fire, going unbeaten in their first 7 games including a 4-1 win over MK Dons and an away win at one of the league favourites in Sheffield Wednesday. Rovers start, however, was a 3-0 loss at Peterborough immediately followed by an embarrassing 6-1 Carling Cup loss to Oxford, as well as a 4-0 home defeat by a struggling Southampton in Alan Pardew's final game in charge of the Saints.

Last weekend both sides showed spirited comebacks, Rovers, as aforementioned, coming back from two goals down with five minutes remaining to draw with Hartlepool, a header from Jo Kuffour and Byron Anthony's second of the season cancelling out goals from Joe Gamble and Antony Sweeney, but the game of the day came at Brunton Park. Charlton got off to a barnstorming start, 2 up at half time and 3 goals to the good after 47 minutes, they looked as if they had the game wrapped up but the Carlisle fightback soon came. Mike Grella, on loan from Leeds, scored in the 58th minute to spark an unlikely comeback. By the 77th minute it was all square, Craig Curran and Gary Madine scoring, but it all ended in tears for the Blues, Paul Benson scoring his second of the game in the 2nd minute of stoppage time to seal the win for the travelling Londoners.

Rovers will hope that summer signing Will Hoskins gets his scoring boots back on after drawing a blank in his last 3 matches. The former Rotherham striker is top scorer for his club this season with 6 goals in all competitions and is looking every bit as good as the last of a string of top strikers to come out of the club in Rickie Lambert. At the other end of the field Byron Anthony has put in a number of superb performances at the back. Moving into the centre for James Tunnicliffe following the dreadful display against Southampton he has worked his socks off, also scoring two last minute goals which have earned his side four points already this term.

The danger men for Carlisle will be their strikeforce of Gary Madine and Mike Grella. Madine, a home grown talent who came close to joining Coventry, is the clubs top scorer this season with seven while Grella, an American by birth, has shown his ability to score during his time with parent club Leeds, where he has made a number of impressive appearances from the bench.

Paul Trollope has spoken to the media recently about his teams habit of scoring goals in the final 10 minutes of games, 6 times in the last 5 games, he told the Bristol Evening Post:

"I'm pretty sure that last year the Hartlepool game was one we would have lost – and lost heavily – so credit for the fact we came away with a point goes to the team ethic and the fact we keep believing,".

"We pushed them back over the last 15 minutes and turned the tables on them. But there were a lot of aspects during the middle hour of the game that we need to work on ahead of Saturday's home game with Carlisle because we weren't firing on all cylinders.

"But the sort of comeback we made last weekend will only add to the confidence of the group."

Rovers should go into the game with the same team that has featured in the previous two matches, though Will Hoskins was suffering from a virus at the start of the week while Harry Pell took a slight knock in a reserve team game with Hereford in midweek, but it is hoped that he will be able to make the match day squad if called upon. That reserve team game finished all square, John Akinde scoring the goal Rovers goal, former Notts County striker Sean Canham netting for the Bulls.

With the home support behind them Bristol Rovers can go into this game with a good level of confidence of getting the result they need, indeed, a win could see the Gas move up into the play-off places and with the form their in, who would bet against it.