Doncaster defending not Harrogate Town’s ‘electric’ Abraham Odoh blamed for Rovers’ latest breakdown
When Doncaster Rovers and Harrogate Town kicked off the League Two season, no one would have been surprised if after Saturday’s reverse fixture one was two points outside the play-offs, the other nearer the relegation zone.
Few would have anticipated Harrogate sitting 12th after doing the double over their Yorkshire rivals.
For the 49 minutes Saturday’s game was at 1-1, Rovers were the better team, recovering from a slow start perhaps connected to their team bus breaking down en route to cancel out Sam Folarin’s opener with a Tommy Rowe blockbuster less than a minute later.
But the Sulphurites had the best player in Abraham Odoh. And when you have a high-quality attacker – both sides have a couple – all you need to do is stay in games.
At 23 years-old and with only 68 league starts, Odoh is rough around the edges. He would not be in League Two otherwise.
When he ought to have restored Harrogate’s first-half lead he was caught between shooting and picking out Folarin and pushed a weak shot beyond the far post. In the second half he ought to have played Jack Muldoon in outside him only to decline, then fluff the eventual pass.
In between time he let Louis Jones win a one-on-one when a proper No 9, as opposed to a No 10 wearing the wrong digit, might not have.
What he could not do was far outweighed by what he did.
In the 18th minute he ran outside winger Folarin and returned a pass with the right weight for his friend to stroke the ball into the net.
In the 53rd his interception of a poor Joseph Olowu pass began a period of pressure which did not end with George Thomson or James Daly scoring in a goalmouth scramble but at least broke the shackles.
Longer-term it might not, but on the day Folarin’s hamstring giving way at the end of the first half helped Harrogate. The ex-Middlesbrough player was very good but so was his replacement, Daly, who finished a flowing move with his first Harrogate goal in only his second game back from two months out injured.
