Two Goal Ewood Debut For Benni & Jason

[Alan75]

Benni McCarthy scored 15min into his Ewood Park debut for Rovers against New Zealand in the final pre season friendly.

Good link up play by Rovers other close season striker Jason Roberts in the 28th min lead to Steven Reid scoring from 20 yards.

Roberts denied a debut goal on 40min, for hand ball and just before half time which was ruled off side.

Half Time Rovers 2 New Zealand 0

2min into the second half Benni McCarthy gets his second and Rovers 3rd of the afternoon.

20min into the second half Jeffers makes his Ewood Park debut, coming on to replace Bentley.

Fine work by McCarthy and Paul Gallagher set up Roberts for his debut goal in the 65th min to give Rovers a 4-0 lead.

In the final minutes Jason Roberts scored his second and Rovers 5th goal of the afternoon.

Final Score 5 - 0

[Alan75]

Match Comments by Paul

Enjoyed the game which Rovers controlled throughout although Brad did have three decent saves to make. Very impressed with the Mccarthy/Robers partnership, to state the obvious, they must be the first choice up front. After this game I'm in the lost one, gained three camp. Last season if Bellamy was out we were looking around for a striker, if Jeffers proves OK, and there was nothing in his play to suggest which way he'll go, we now have three.

NZ were poor opposition, not bad, just a lower standard and we'd have been disappointed if Rovers had not won comfortably. Lucas looked comfortable enough at centre-back, Gray was fine but I'd reserve judgement on Mokoena at RB. Reid was up and down the right doing a lot of work, and would have been my MOTM. Savage ran around as usual and put in 2 or 3 crunching tackles which upset the NZ boys. Overall the team looked fit, passed well, moved for each other. Looking forward to Everton to see if this can be carried through to the PL.