Doncaster Rovers 0 Crawley Town 1: Saunders looks for ‘jaded’ Rovers to bounce back against Hull

Rovers were beaten by a late strike from Nicky Ajose on Saturday, to earn Crawley their first League One away win, at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Twice Crawley’s Kyle McFadzean headed wide in the second half as the visitors looked to snatch all three points, while substitute Josh Simpson fired a good chance just wide moments after coming on for the Red Devils.

But Ajose steered in the winner late on when he got the slightest of touches on Simpson’s well-hit shot.

Defeat surprised Saunders, who must now rally his troops for tomorrow night’s visit of the Tigers in the second round of the Capital One Cup.

“It was a tight and scrappy game and I think they’d have been happy with a draw,” said Saunders.

“I thought the worst thing that would happen to us would be that we’d draw 0-0.

“We couldn’t string passes together as we have been doing in our other games.

“A few of the lads looked a bit jaded.”

Rovers were looking to build on their best start to a league campaign since 2003-04.

And Kyle Bennett was a constant danger to the visitors’ defence, earning several free-kicks, with Martin Woods going close only to be thwarted by Crawley goalkeeper Paul Jones.

Billy Paynter got a foot to David Cotterill’s right-wing cross at the near post but Jones got down well to smother the ball.

Rovers had tried to pass the ball to feet for most of the opening 20 minutes rather than mix it as they had done in their first two games.

For all their endeavours, Crawley had yet to trouble Rovers’ Woods. The Doncaster goalkeeper punched clear from Nicky Adams’s free-kick to help set up a counter-attack.

Tommy Spurr just failed to get on the end of Paynter’s angled shot, which was going wide of the far post after Cotterill had done well down the right.

Paynter shot wide of the right-hand post then failed to test Jones with his header from a dangerous-looking cross into the box by Cotterill.

The two sides had largely cancelled each other out in the first half and the first goal, if there was to be one, appeared likely to give the scorers a huge psychological advantage.

Bennett shot just over from a similar position to the goal he scored at Walsall last weekend.

Woods, who had had little to do this half, got down well to smother Ajose’s angled shot, but he could do nothing to deny the same player seconds later as he got a touch to Adams’s angled 20-yarder on 88 minutes.

Woods had to be at full stretch to deny Alexander a second Crawley goal in the last minute of stoppage time.

Doncaster Rovers: G Woods; Quinn, McCombe, Jones, Spurr; Cotterill, Syers, M Woods, Bennett; Paynter, Brown (Coppinger 64). Unused substitutes: Husband, Blake, Harper, Keegan, Sullivan.

Crawley Town: Jones; Hunt, Davis (Simpson 69), McFadzean, Sadler; Adams, Cooper, Akpan, Torres; Alexander, Ajose (Bulman 90).

Unused substitutes: Connolly, Clarke, Forte, Neilson, Kuipers.

Referee: Trevor Kettle (Rutland).

Man of the match: Kyle Bennett.