Doncaster Rovers 3 Blackpool 2 - Blackpool rocked as Rovers ccomplete remarkable comeback win

Seeing Rovers in the second half underscored what an exciting season this could be at the Keepmoat. Watching them in the first showed why the word “could” is needed. It was the sixth time in nine matches the opposition have scored first.

Even with five available, all it took was one substitution to change things around, although Darren Moore argued the biggest change was mental.

His side had been guilty of over-complicating in the first half. Left-winger James Coppinger was almost playing as a second No 10 at times so often did he come off the left, and the middle of the pitch was congested.

Coppinger was given a breather, replaced by Taylor Richards, with James moved from the unusual-for-him position of central midfield to the unusual-for-him position of left wing.

Richards made the second for James, who played a decisive part in the third.

“There was no urgency to us,” said Moore of the first half. “We needed a reaction and we got it second half.

“It was much more like us in the second 45 minutes. We showed what the team was about and they struggled to recover.

“Second half the urgency was more there. There was more speed of thought, more patterns, more players moving earlier off the ball.

“They did show that desire, I could hear it on the pitch.”

With his team 3-2 down, Neil Critchley made a quadruple substitution, then a fifth three minutes later.

Blackpool were livid not to be given a stoppage-time penalty when the ball appeared to strike Brad Halliday but the way the tide had turned, they might well have missed it.

Left-back Cameron John gave Doncaster their foothold, getting on the end of a Josh Sims cutback three minutes after the break to get them believing.

Five minutes later they were level, James coming off the flank to Richards’s beautiful diagonal ball and cushioning it past Chris Maxwell on the volley.

Blackpool had been so dominant in the first half, but were never really in the second until the kitchen-throwing following the Tangerines’ mass revamp.

James popped up in the inside-right channel after 76 minutes and measured a lovely pass to Sims, poor in the first half.

From his pull-back, former Barnsley midfielder Kenny Dougall fouled Matt Smith and Whiteman stepped up to do what Whiteman does.

A moment in the fifth minute hinted at where Doncaster’s first-half problems would come, goalkeeper Joe Lumley picking out CJ Hamilton when aiming for John.

Ponderous Doncaster tried to be too clever by half and their fondness for over-complicating things in central areas was their undoing at times.

At others it was former Sheffield Wednesday and United striker Gary Madine and Doncaster-born Jerry Yates, heading up a bread-and-butter Blackpool 4-4-2. When Halliday pulled Madine down in the area after 10 minutes, his partner in crime sent Lumley the wrong way.

Yates nearly had a second two minutes later, Lumley unconvincingly patting a cross down and the centre-forward’s shot ricocheting just the wrong side of the post.

The second goal came from Rovers again overdoing it, losing the ball in the middle of the field and seeing Sully Kaikai sprint behind their defence.

Lumley came out to win the one-on-one but Hamilton smashed the loose ball into the net. At that stage it was hard to see anything but a Blackpool win. Less than 10 minutes into the second half, it was hard to see anything but Doncaster triumphing.

“In this game you’re not always going to win pretty, playing the perfect style,” said Moore.

“This season the team’s shown different ways to win the game and I have to be pleased because we’ve beaten a really good team.”

Doncaster Rovers: Lumley; Halliday, Wright, Anderson, John; Whiteman, James; Coppinger (Richards 46), Smith, Sims; Okenabirhie. Unused substitutes: Lokilo, Jones, Amos, Williams, Butler, Ravenhill.

Blackpool: Maxwell; Turton (Gabriel 81), Ekpiteta, Gretarsson, Husband (Mitchell 81); Hamilton, Dougall, Robson (Ward 85), Kaikai (Anderson 81); Madine, Yates (Woodburn 81). Unused substitutes: Sims, Ballard.

Referee: R Joyce (Teesside).

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