Doncaster Rovers 3 Leyton Orient 0 - Skipper Bailey comes up trumps again in commanding win
Doncaster Rovers manager Grant McCann must be tempted to switch his phone off and hide his sim card between now and Monday night.
Yet again, for the umpteenth time this season, his captain Owen Bailey came up with the goods to massively contribute towards a much-needed and emphatic victory. The transfer window slams shut early next week and whilst he recently admitted there is neither a requirement to sell the club's best players nor has there been any concrete interest, each goal that Bailey notches will only increase the number of clubs taking a firm interest in the 27-year-old.
He surely swelled his price tag with a brace here to take his season tally to a remarkable 13 goals. Pre-match all the talk had been about Rovers' sixth signing of the window with a long-awaited central defender finally through the door. Neill Byrne could be forgiven for thinking he'd been thrown in at the deep end. Barely 24 hours after arriving from Yorkshire rivals Bradford the 32-year-old was partly tasked with trying to keep quiet the division's deadliest forward, Orient's Dom Ballard.
Twenty per cent of the marksman's league tally so far had come against Rovers, in the 4-0 evisceration down in London back in October. But in truth Ballard - and the rest of the visitors' forward players - hardly had a sniff all night.
Demetri Mitchell saw a shot come back off a post in the early throes but apart from that there was precious else for Rovers to deal with defensively.
The hosts took the lead just after the half-hour mark and it was a familiar name on the scoresheet. Bailey, operating higher up the field after Byrne's arrival, was once again in the right place at the right time to fire home after a scintillating, free-flowing Rovers move that is worth more than a few replays once it's uploaded in full onto YouTube.
Prior to the goal Rovers had been by far the more adventurous of the two sides, with Luke Molyneux a constant thorn in the Orient defence and Frankie Okoronkwo leading the line with robustness. Having squandered a three-goal buffer last Saturday the hosts knew they could ill afford to rest on their laurels after Bailey's opener. And they were afforded a golden chance to double the advantage when Okoronkwo was upended inside the penalty area after a wild attempted challenge by Kaelan Casey.
Molyneux stepped up and fired home Rovers' second with what was their first spot-kick since the opening day against Exeter.
The visitors made a staggering four changes for the restart but they were powerless to resist the attacking might of Grant McCann's side. Molyneux tried his luck from distance but Cahill spilled a shot straight into the path of Bailey who was never going to miss from a few yards out to make it 3-0.
Thankfully, a repeat of the collapse against Wigan never materialised as a feeble Orient threatened even less in the second half making the final half-hour a procession.
Rovers: Clarke, Sterry, Byrne, McGrath, Senior, Gotts, Bailey, Clifton, Molyneux, Okoronkwo, Adelakun
Substitutes: Sharp for Okoronkwo 70; Middleton for Adelakun 84; Nixon for Sterry; Broadbent for Clifton 90.
Not used: Lo-Tutala, Robinson, Gibson.
Attendance: 7,033.
Man of the match: OWEN BAILEY: We're running out of words to describe the Rovers captain, as he bumped his tally for the season up to 13 goals and produced plenty more besides that.