Despite defeat, United manager Russ Wilcox declared he feels his side are not too far away from turning a corner in their SkyBet League One fortunes.
The Iron lost 2-1 to local rivals Doncaster Rovers, conceding two goals through poor individual errors and choices, something which when ironed out will see Scunthorpe’s fortunes change and under Wilcox’s own admission, would have seen United run away as 1-0 victors.“It’s the same old story,” Wilcox told The Iron Player.
“I do feel today that our performance was good enough to warrant something from the game. I’m not sure that it warranted three points, but it certainly warranted at least a point. It’s the best we’ve played in a long time with regards to passing the ball and moving.
“We’ve worked on that all week. Our performance with the ball at Oldham wasn’t good enough last week. At this level, if you keep giving the ball away you get punished.”
He added: “Today our performance with the ball at times was good. We created good opportunities and moved the ball around the pitch well.”
Going into the fixture making two changes, Terry Hawkridge and Matt Sparrow returned to the starting line-up at the expense of Jennison Myrie-Williams and Sean McAllister.
“We came up against a good Doncaster outfit who are full of Championship players with plenty of experience,” he continued.
“It was always going to be a difficult game, but in a nutshell, again the bottom line is that the schoolboy errors are costing us goals. It’s so hard to eradicate that on the training ground because each week it’s someone else. It’s not like you can change personnel, it seems to be somebody different every week.”
He added: “We need to address that and do the basics well – managing the period when we are ahead better, like Doncaster did when they were 2-1 up. They managed the period comfortably. We’re not managing these periods well enough.”
Rory Fallon had put the hosts ahead after a quarter of the match, with the United boss praising his contributions in his opening two games for the club.
“It was a great goal from Rory today,” said Wilcox.
“I’ve been really pleased with his contribution in his two games with the club. He’s got two in two and he’s been a real handful up at the top of the pitch with Paddy.”
He added: “There have been lots of positives to take from this game, but again we have no points to show from it and that’s what we need. I’d rather have a scrappy victory that play some good football and lose.
“There’s certainly positives to take from today, it doesn’t feel like it at the moment with it being a local derby and Doncaster being our local rivals. Certainly, living there myself and some of the other lads live there as well, it was a game we really committed and focused on to win.”
He added: “We’ve not done that, but again we’ve not made Doncaster work hard enough for their goals.”
See much more from Russ Wilcox, Rory Fallon and Terry Hawkridge on The Iron Player.