Gary Johnson's squad was once again stretched to it's limits as they made their second trip to the North inside
five days. With Paul Terry suspended and Roy O'Brien, Jake Edwards, Colin Pluck, Terry Skiverton and Nick Crittenden
all injured and Andy Bishop returned to Walsall following his injury, it was another strange looking team that
took to the field.
Probably partly through necessity, Yeovil started the game with a 3-4-1-2 formation, fielding Stephen Reed in the
back three and using Abdou El Kholti and Andy Lindegaard as wing-backs. Simon Weatherstone acted as the most forward
looking of the midfield trio and Gavin Williams and Adam Stansfield formed the front partnership.
The opening 20 minutes of the game was a scrappy affair. Yeovil nearly opened the proceedings when some indecision
in the Scunthorpe line allowed Simon Weatherstone to try and intercept a ball back to keeper Tom Evans. He got the
ball first but home captain Nathan Stanton managed to head Weatherstone's lob away for a corner with Weatherstone
getting a bang to the head for his efforts. Then Adam Stansfield received a Hugo Rodrigues flick-on from a Lee Johnson
free kick but Stanno's attempt was saved comfortably by the keeper.
Wayne Graves gave the home side their first chance but he blasted his attempt after 11 minutes clean out of the
ground. The hosts were using an up'n'under approach to the game, largely bypassing the midfield entirely, and
only right winger Cleveland Taylor seemed to be there for the more purists type of footballing game, putting up
a great battle with Abdou El Kholti all afternoon.
Referee Mr Penn was to prove to be an irritatingly inconsistent official who never really gained control of the
game. He started off with a flurry of yellow cards, including a caution for Gavin Williams for apparently diving,
when it was quite apparent that Gavin had trod on the ball and lost his balance as a result. But this early bit
of card-waving made a rod for his own back as he later ignored far worse infringements such as a late foul by Lee
Johnson that were far more worthy of a caution.
What was a fairly tame low quality game of football turned 25 minutes into the game. Just when Gary Johnson thought
he couldn't lose any more central defenders, Hugo Rodrigues got a whack in the face and had to come off, with the
diagnosis eventually being a broken nose. Whilst he was still off the field, Scunthorpe got their opening goal.
Steve MACLEAN hooked a ball home from 15 yards giving Chris Weale little chance of getting a hand on his
excellent strike.
At the time, it seemed that Yeovil's main defficiency was that they lacked a physical presence up front, so it
was somewhat unfortunate that the only available substitute to replace Hugo was centre-forward Kirk Jackson, who
came on and slotted into an unfamiliar position.
Scunthorpe weren't exactly swarming all over Yeovil's beleagured defence with the game continuing in the same
messy fashion. Cleveland Taylor produced most of the quality moments with his backpost cross forcing Chris Weale
to make an excellent save from a Steve Torpey header. Yeovil still mounted their own occasional attacks, but were
largely toothless in their final delivery. Adam Stansfield's knock-down to Simon Weatherstone was one of the
more fruitful moments but Weatherstone's final shot went wide of the target.
It did seem though that Yeovil would be able to regroup at the half-time break until the very last move
of the half. Darren HOLLOWAY managed to squeeze a near post header off the underside of the crossbar
deep into the injury time allocated for the injury to Rodrigues and Scunthorpe went in at the break 2-0 up.
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