Expectant Flynn determined to be ‘out of a job’ come tomorrow

Doncaster will have got the point they need to secure promotion, thus ending the terms of the contract the affable Welshman signed in mid-January when he agreed to finish the job Dean Saunders started.

If Flynn is still in employment, then Rovers will have lost, and will face two, hopefully three, further games to try and clinch promotion.

Needless to say, Flynn wants the former scenario to play out.

“I like that. I can’t argue with that,” laughs Flynn, when it is put to him that success today will signal an early end to his contract.

It is all tongue in cheek of course. If Rovers win promotion today then the first order of business for chairman John Ryan and the club’s board is to sit Flynn down and hand him a long-term deal.

If they trusted in him to keep the club on an upward trajectory in the wake of Saunders’ unexpected departure, then they would be foolish to cast him aside once he has given them lift off.

Flynn certainly wants that, regardless of whether it takes 90 minutes today to get the point they need, or 270 more minutes in the play-offs.

“I’d like to manage in the Championship, that’s blatantly obvious,” he adds. “I’ve said that before.”

To do that, Rovers need to avoid defeat at Griffin Park, in a game that is arguably the biggest in the country today.

Nowhere else is there a straight shootout for a prize two teams have battled long and hard for all season.

To add further spice to the fixture, it pits the team with the best home form in League One against the team with the best away record.

“Our away form gives players confidence,” says Flynn, who has overseen five wins on the road to add to the nine victories that Saunders achieved in the first half of the season.

“We’ve conceded goals away from home and come back and got victories, and players do feed off that. I think we are the underdogs because we’re away from home.

“They’ll have a full house, their home form is the best, our away form is the best, so something has to give.

“Yes we can get a draw, but we don’t go down there to pinch a point. We’re going down there to get a win.”

Doncaster could have had promotion sealed last week, had they beaten Notts County at an expectant Keepmoat Stadium, as many had anticipated.

But that pressure weighed heavier on himself and the players than he had thought it would.

As manager, Flynn had to field questions in the run up about where the trophy podium would be placed on the Keepmoat pitch, and what time news organisations could take their cameras into the celebrating dressing room.

“The expectation level stepped up last week and when you don’t do it, everyone’s deflated,” he says. “I could sense it last week, everybody thought Notts County would just turn up.”

Flynn and his players were not oblivious to their dangerous opponents, though, and consequently not too downhearted when it did not go their way.

Any disappointment was quickly dismissed from their minds and since returning to their Cantley Park training base at the start of the week, there has been a quiet resolve not to fluff their lines again.

The general feeling has been one of placing everything into context, notably the fact that they are still in with a chance of winning promotion after starting the season after relegation with just eight players.

So limited were resources that they began pre-season with Saunders and his assistant Brian Carey playing in a friendly game against Cleethorpes.

Flynn was on the sidelines that sunny July day, and not for a second did he comprehend that it would be he leading Doncaster into such a momentous game nine months later.

“The difference between promotion and not going up is £6m-plus in funding in the Championship compared to £238,000 in League One,” he says with a shrug of the shoulders.

“So there’s a lot of pressure. But I’ve been in pressure situations before where it’s worse. I was at Swansea 10 years ago when we had to beat Hull to stay in the Football League.

“That was unbelievable pressure. This is pressure where you have a smile on your face.

“We’ve all got nerves for a game like this, but it’s adrenalin, excitement, and looking forward to the challenge of a winner takes all.”

A decade before that nerve- jangling Swansea game, Flynn’s Wrexham team sealed promotion to Division Two with a 2-0 win at Northampton.

That victory came on April 27, 1993, and to repeat the trick exactly 20 years later, Flynn believes Doncaster have to start well to silence the crowd at Griffin Park today.

“I’ve seen dozens of Brentford’s games,” he says. “We know what we’re up against. They’ve got some talented players.

“If we start well in the first 20 minutes that will be important.

“When we do start brightly then we can control games better, and when you get a degree of control, then Brentford’s frustrations on the pitch might spill into the crowd.

“My players are ready. I’ll just go round reminding everyone of their jobs.

“They don’t need a rousing speech at the end, they know what the key is in the match.”

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