‘The slump is finally over. Well, almost.’

Hallelujah! The slump is finally over. Well, almost.

Saying that Rovers won by two clear goals against struggling Bury doesn’t quite tell the whole tale. Bury two goals came from their only shots on target all game. For a side that has lost ten league games on the trot to have a 100 per cent conversion rate of shots on target to goals may seem like a meaningless stay,  and maybe it is, but to me it says that we’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to our defensive woes.

Then, let’s add the fact that our second goal was the result of a mistake by their keeper, ex-Man Utd youth Ben Williams, so deserving of the term “howler” that the Oxford English dictionary is going to include a DVD of it with all future editions. Not to mention the two or three gilt-edged chances squandered by the front line before the Shakers went a goal up and had us all fearing a repeat of the last few weeks.

Still, a win is very much a win, as the old saying goes, and you get the same number of points for beating a side in rotten form at home as you do for beating the top side in the league at their place.

Given the horrific conditions in North Bristol on Saturday it’s pretty good going for the team to be able to stick to its game plan,  too – it must be tempting to temporarily forget the principles of keeping the ball and dominating possession when you can’t see six feet in front of your face and the shirt on your back weighs twice as much as it did in the warm-up.

Darrell Clarke certainly shared my thoughts; happy to have taken the points but improvement is needed in all departments. I don’t think it’s even a huge improvement that is needed; remember, this same group of players were performing week-end and week-out up until six weeks ago and we were nestled in the play-off spots. 

Once again, the microscope falls on the goalkeeping situation, Clarke losing patience with Kelle Roos and starting Will Puddy, which surprised many. Certainly his lack of appearances since he graced Wembley with his, er, sweeper keeper skills in the Conference play-off (Saturday being his second in that time), led many, including me, to think he was on the books for emergencies only, to be dusted off when all keepers were injured (or if we had another Checkatrade Trophy game). He didn’t have much to do except pick the ball out of the net twice, but he didn’t make any dreadful mistakes, so it’ll be interesting to see if the manager sticks with him for the next game, or restores Roos, presumably because the Dutchman will have responded well to his dropping, and the managers brutally honest appraisal of his underperformance between the sticks.

Whichever keeper gets their chance to shine, the stage will be Greenhaus Meadow, home of Shrewsbury Town. Here’s a ground that the Gas have only visited once in its’ nine and a half year history. Town’s final game at their famous old home, Gay Meadow, was a play off semi final which set them a Wembley date with ourselves back in 2007. You know how that one ended, Sammy Igoe and all that, but since then the two clubs have only found themselves in the same division in 2011/12, a season where they beat us 1-0 at their place on Valentine’s Day en route to automatic promotion. That game produced one of the worst Gas lineups in recent memory, featuring such luminaries  as Michael Poke, Craig Stanley and Andy Dorman – the player who famously didn’t know what Division we were in when he signed! Lee Brown is the sole survivor from that day.

Our opposing manager is a familiar one – Paul Hurst brought Grimsby Town to the Mem for the start of our twelve-month hiatus from the Football League, and his side also proved to be our final fifth tier opponent in the already mentioned play-off final in 2015. (You can tell we’ve had a bad run of form when I’m bringing up two old Wembley wins in one column!). Having got the Humberside club back in League football in May, impressively bouncing back from a cruel play-off defeat at the hands of Horfield’s finest, the Shrews came calling. His Grimsby side was never an easy one to beat and I don’t expect a cakewalk at the home of Weetabix (younger readers, ask your dad) at the weekend. 

Their form has been mixed since Hurst joined in late October, which is a damn sight better than the relegation form they were showing beforehand. Given that the Bury win papered over the cracks a bit, I’ll take a score draw from this one.

James Hodges is Bristol24/7’s Bristol Rovers columnist for the 2016/17 season.