Doncaster Rovers boss Grant McCann explains tactical rejig against Cardiff City as he makes pledge

Rovers suffered a heart-breaking, last-minute defeat down in South Wales, conceding deep into stoppage time. Prior to Joel Bagan's late winner, Rovers had put on a spirited display against the division's leaders. They went in front through Owen Bailey and then twice pegged their hosts back - Brandon Hanlan and Harry Clifton each restoring parity before Bagan's cruel, late strike.

Rovers' starting XI at the Cardiff City Stadium raised a few eyebrows with three centre-halves and four central midfielders deployed in what was a hybrid 3-5-1-1 formation. Later on in the game Rovers switched back to their preferred 4-2-3-1 set-up.

Explaining the reasoning to the Free Press, McCann said: "We just wanted to be more positive and brave. And sometimes when you're in a 4-3-3 against a 4-3-3, you can get overloaded by one of their centre-backs. So we didn't want that to happen.

"We wanted Harry to jump with Brandon. We didn't want to give Cardiff's players any time. The only one who was going to have time on the ball was their goalkeeper.

"And I think you've saw that most of the game. When we went to 3-2, we felt their wide players were staying a little bit wider which made it more difficult for Jay (McGrath) and Sean (Grehan) to get out to them.

"Hence why we went back to the four and we get a goal from it. And then we're thinking, can we get a winner? We nearly do with Gibbo (Jordan Gibson) but ultimately, we've shot ourselves in the foot with that last-minute winner for them."

Many Rovers fans would probably have snatched your hand off if you'd said they would score three goals at the home of the table-toppers. And despite their defensive fragilities coming back to haunt them, McCann believes the team are starting to become more polished.

"It's getting there," he added. "We just need to keep putting the players in the positions. Like I've said before, the more times you create chances, the more goals we want to score. But we can't score every chance. If we scored every chance today, we would have scored 15 or 16 goals or something like that. But I'll keep demanding more of them.

"I'll keep persisting with how we want to play and hopefully the boys are enjoying it. Ultimately, we need to be better from certain moments."

Rovers host Plymouth Argyle next Saturday. The two sides are both on 22 points but Argyle sit a place lower by virtue of goal difference.