Doncaster Rovers: '˜The team would have suffered if I'd been more selfish' - John Marquis on the hunt for goals

Marquis ended an 11 game barren spell in front of goal when he put Rovers ahead against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

While the team has struggled for goals overall during that period, the striker says she could still see his value to the team.

And he says being too focused on his own worries would have done Rovers no good.

“I feel like my performances were good,” Marquis said.

“Bringing other players into the team, I feel my presence on the pitch helps, especially with such a young squad.

“I cannot become too selfish and focus on myself and scoring because I think the team would have suffered if I’d become more selfish.

“I’d always put myself as a big team player. I’d always put the team before myself.

“For me to score, it’s been a long time coming but it’s no good scoring once.

“I need to kick on now between now and the end of the season.”

Marquis thanked boss Darren Ferguson for his support so far this season.

Ferguson has said numerous times in recent weeks that Marquis more than justifies his place in the team with his workrate alone.

And the striker revealed his manager had instructed him not to be too concerned with a lack of goals.

“I’ve got a manager who believes in me and he said don’t worry about scoring,” he said.

“He said not to make everything about scoring because if I did then it would affect my performances and I’d lose them.

“I got a couple of assists in that time so it’s not like games have been passing me by.

“There’s been games where I’ve not had a chance.

“But my job in the team is to be a centre forward that holds the ball up and brings others into the game.

“Using aggression, strength, working hard for the team - I’ve been ticking those boxes.

“It’s just the one box I haven’t ticked and that is scoring.”

Marquis is now looking to considerably add to his eight goal tally over the final 16 games of the campaign.

And despite suffering defeat last weekend, he is confident Rovers can begin to string wins together during the run-in.

He said: “Not scoring has been there for a while in the back of my mind.

“It’s been the longest drought of my career so you can’t really forget that.

“It’s literally that I’ve been missing scoring the goals.

“So it’s a relief but I’d rather have not scored at the weekend and we won.

“I’ve not really put a run together this season but hopefully I can and see where it takes me personally and also the team.

“There’s no point worrying about this result too much.

“In the nine games there was a few draws and it’s fine margins where if we could have turned those into wins we’d maybe be looking higher up the table.

“We’ve got to be confident in the way we’re playing and how we’re set up that we can win games.

“If we play like we did on Saturday then we’ll win more than we lose.”