Doncaster 1 - 2 StokeStoke class tells at Doncaster thanks to Jonathan Walters’ Cup special
Home team scorersNathan Tyson 25
Away team scorersPeter Crouch 15
Jonathan Walters 57
Jonathan Walters thrashed in a stunning winner as Stoke put their midweek disappointment behind them with further cup progress. The Capital One Cup semi-finalists put their first-leg deficit to Liverpool behind them by making light of their impressive League One hosts despite multiple switches in personnel at the Keepmoat Stadium.
Having fielded the same XI in the four previous matches since Christmas, including Tuesday night’s home defeat to Liverpool in the League Cup Mark Hughes made nine changes. Only the central defensive, duo Ryan Shawcross and Philipp Wollscheid, remained.
In contrast, the single alteration his former Manchester United team-mate Darren Ferguson made for Doncaster was enforced as the captain, James Coppinger, turned his ankle in training this week. The other 10 from the 3-0 win at Southend last week, the Yorkshire club’s eighth victory in a dozen matches, were retained.
The confidence from that recent run was reflected in Doncaster’s early swagger. With Cedric Evina, the former Arsenal trainee, to the fore down the left flank, they provided two early tests for Stoke’s debutant goalkeeper, Jakob Haugaard.
There were only 80 seconds on the clock when Evina curved his run infield and forced the Dane, who arrived from Midtjylland in the summer, to pull down a 25-yard drive. Then, from Evina’s delivery, Andy Williams looped a header from the edge of the area that forced the 23-year-old to collect under his crossbar.
Yet it was the Premier League team that took the lead as Peter Crouch marked only his fourth start of the season – all have come in the cup competitions – with his second goal. Joselu, one of the forward-minded three supporting the 6ft 7in frontman, wriggled into room on the right and teased the ball to the edge of the six-yard area where it was guided inside the far corner via a side-foot finish.
Four minutes later, Crouch audaciously attempted to double the advantage with a piece of improvisation.. However, after spotting Thorsten Stuckmann off his line, he shanked his chip from 40 yards.
As has been the trend of recent Stoke away matches, it remained an open contest with the League One club playing a full part, and soon after Williams’s volley proved too central to cause Haugaard undue discomfort they levelled. The Doncaster full-back Luke McCullough scythed through the heart of the Stoke team from inside his own half and Nathan Tyson was first to react after his initial effort, from the cut-back, was saved.
At that point it appeared to be turning into an uncomfortable afternoon for Hughes, who scored in the 1990 Cup final to help provide Ferguson’s famous father with his first English trophy. In the 10 minutes after the restart, Conor Grant zipped a drive through a crowded penalty area and narrowly wide and Craig Alcock went down under a challenge from Mame Biram Diouf only for the referee, Keith Stroud, to wave away home penalty appeals.
If Doncaster sensed blood it was soon detectable in their own nostrils as Stoke counterpunched spectacularly. A matter of seconds after Diouf’s header from a scintillating raid was turned away by Stuckmann and diverted over the top by one of Crouch’s lengthy limbs, Walters provided one of the goals of the round. Allowed to advance 30 yards from goal, he sized up the target and deposited the ball in one of its top corners to provide further cup joy for Stoke’s 4,000-strong travelling support.
Undeterred, Doncaster pressed to take the contest to a replay but Andy Williams’s cute header eight minutes came back off the crossbar and Tyson and the centre-back Andy Butler both missed opportunities from inside the six-yard box as the clock hit 90.
Guardian
