WHAT a difference a week can make. After witnessing a seven-goal mauling of Burton, Bristol Rovers' fans must have arrived in one of the less enchanting parts of the Potteries with high hopes that their side could pick up a rare win at Vale Park.
Yet they witnessed a performance that bore virtually no resemblance to the free-scoring display a week earlier. Indeed, in many ways, the contrast could barely have been starker.
The Pirates had looked like a side able to score virtually at will in the second half of their clash with the Brewers – although, admittedly, they had been aided by some kamikaze defending from their opponents.
Here they found Vale far less generous, so much so that the Pirates were unable to muster a single on-target effort during the whole 90 minutes.
They did little to help themselves, however, with a generally tepid display and once the home side edged ahead – courtesy of a somewhat fortuitous deflection – the visitors' plight was deepened by the dismissal of young central defender Tom Parkes.
The Leicester City loanee's 39-minute contribution to the game started in frustrating fashion when he turned a firmly-struck low corner kick from Mustapha Carayol narrowly wide in the opening minute – and it went downhill from there.
It had been a fairly even contest over the opening stages, although Rovers had fashioned the better chances – they had another in the 14th minute when Danny Woodards fired a left-foot shot wide from the edge of the box.
But it was the home side who made a breakthrough from their first serious attack of the game. Former Rovers player Sean Rigg, pictured, supplied a good cross from Vale's left and their leading scorer Marc Richards got in a header which took a big enough deflection off Parkes to leave keeper Scott Bevan helpless.
If that had an element of bad luck about it, there could be little mitigation – apart, maybe, from inexperience and youthful over-enthusiasm – when Parkes launched himself into a studs-up lunge on Vale midfielder Chris Shuker near the halfway line.
As needless challenges went, it was on a par with Carl Regan's astonishing attempt to launch Leyton Orient's Stephen Dawson over the DAS Stand at the Memorial Stadium last season, and it left the off-colour visitors with a task they rarely looked like accomplishing to get back into the game.
In between the goal and Parkes' early exit, they had fashioned half-chances, but Matt Harrold smashed a 22-yard free-kick over the top, Carayol was unable to get any power on his header from Jim Paterson's cross and Eliot Richards was also wayward with a rising finish after the ball had bobbled to him off Harrold.
Early in the second period, the visitors were almost handed a lifeline when Joe Davis tried to intercept a Richards cross and nearly deflected it into his own net, the ball drifting a foot wide of the far post.
But in terms of opportunities created, that was to be pretty much it from the Pirates, who were operating with Harrold as their lone striker because of their depleted numbers. You could only feel for the big striker as he battled away single-handedly, but had a woeful lack of support.
To say he looked an isolated figure would be something of an understatement and his plight was emphasised just after the hour when he put in a decent header back across the box from a free-kick, only to find he was the only Rovers player in the penalty area at the time.
Instead, it was Vale who created the majority of second-half chances. After Andy Dorman failed to clear his lines, Adam Yates sent a 25-yarder flying just wide and Shuker was also narrowly off target with a volley from just outside the box.
The damage would undoubtedly have been worse had Bevan not pulled off a clutch of fine saves during the final 25 minutes.
First he went to his left to beat away a volley from Louis Dodds, and then came out well to deny the same player after he had seized on a wayward pass from Cian Bolger to break clear.
Bevan's best stop came three minutes from time when he went to his right to keep out a strike from Doug Loft, which had taken a big deflection and looked to be heading for the bottom corner.
But the keeper was needed again in stoppage time to thwart another one-on-one opportunity, denying Richards a second goal in the process.
One win in their last 20 visits suggests Vale Park is indeed one of Rovers' bogey grounds. That hoodoo rarely looked likely to be broken on an off afternoon for the visitors.
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