Romaine Sawyers was disappointed after Bristol Rovers' ‘cruel’ 2-1 defeat to Mansfield Town in Sky Bet League One.
The Gas were looking to return to winning ways with a third successive victory at The Memorial Stadium after back-to-back away losses to Lincoln City and Crawley Town. However, the hosts got off to the worst possible start, with Will Evans getting onto Jed Ward’s poor pass before laying it across to Caylan Vickers for a simple finish inside a minute.
Sawyers drilled in the equaliser from the edge of the before half-time, but Rovers went behind for a second time. This time, it was Connor Taylor who made a mistake, with Keanu Baccus latching onto a loose pass before assisting Dom Dwyer.
The 33-year-old highlighted that his side dominated spells of the fixture but emphasised that they must put teams away.
“I think football can be cruel sometimes,” he said. “I think today was one of those days. I think we showed spells of what type of team we want to be and what type of team we can be. I think it’s just a case of we’ve got to take accountability as a whole team. We obviously made two individual errors, but I think we’ve got to kill games off.
“We showed dominance in spells, and we always give them a foothold in the game if we keep making errors like that and keep giving them a chance to stay in games. We’ve got to start killing teams off. When we look good, we look really good.
“Jed’s come up for us in many games before. So, it’s an error that he knows, shall we say, got to do better with, but I think we reacted well to get back in the game. I think it almost sparked us. We started a bit slow, and I think that summed it up. We reacted well, which is good. We’ve got to be men about the situation. We got back into the game, and unfortunately, the same thing again. We made an error, and the second time we just couldn’t get back into it.”
Two errors proved costly for the Gas, who gifted the Stags both of their goals at The Mem. After Rovers levelled the score through Sawyers’ strike, momentum completely switched into the Pirates' favour. However, they could not make it count before Vickers gave the visitors the lead for the second time.
After three successive defeats, Sawyers called on his side to stand up to the challenge and confessed they cannot be feeling sorry for themselves.
“It’s a sucker punch,” said Sawyers. “You get two of those in a season, but we were unfortunate to get them both in the game. I think time and time again since I’ve been here at least, we’ve had to work hard for our goals, and we’ve had to score good goals. We’re giving away sloppy chances and sloppy goals, and we can’t keep doing that. We’re in the situation that we’re in. Maybe that’s probably why. We need to be men about the situation and stand up and be accounted for it because we can’t keep feeling sorry for ourselves, or these things are going to happen, and we go and get relegated, and nobody wants that.”
Sawyers was Rovers’ first signing of the January transfer window and played in the first four League One games he was available for before picking up an injury that saw him miss the next nine fixtures. Appearing off the bench against Crawley, Sawyers made it a scoring return to the starting side with a fine finish into the bottom corner against Mansfield.
Despite the loss, the former Cardiff City midfielder admitted he was pleased to be back on the pitch and has been ‘itching to get back.’
“I think I’m in quite a fortunate job, and these are the days that we live for with matchdays,” said Sawyers. “Monday to Friday, we work hard, but it counts for nothing if we don’t deliver on Saturday. It’s good to be back amongst it with the boys. They’ve had some good results since I’ve not been involved. I’ve been itching to get back. We’ve played well in spells, but it’s a 90-minute game.”
The Gas are back in action at The Mem on Tuesday and face League One leaders Birmingham City, who are nine points clear of second place Wrexham with the additional bonus of playing two games fewer than the Red Dragons.
It will be a tough test for Iñigo Calderón’s men, but wins at home over promotion hopefuls Huddersfield Town and Bolton Wanderers should give the side confidence.
Sawyers stressed that his side cannot ‘dwell' on the defeat and that the match against Blues gives them a chance to make a statement to the rest of the league.
“I think the good thing about it is that you can’t dwell,” said the midfielder. “We don’t want Jed or Connor going home worrying, overthinking it or getting down in the dumps. We have to dust off and go again. We’ve got two days before the next game. We’ve just got to mentally prepare right. It’s a good game against a big team in this league. It’s a chance to improve and show your worth.
“If you can’t get yourself up for these games, you’re in the wrong industry. At this level, they are a big team, they’ve probably spent a lot of money, and they’ve got a target on their back to go and be favourites. So, if we go in and put a performance against them, it puts a statement out to the rest of the league. We’ve done it here against Bolton and Huddersfield and made good statements to the rest of the league to show that we’re a team that can affect both ends of the table.”
