Bristol Rovers 0 Macclesfield Town 0

Last updated : 11 December 2004 By Footymad Previewer
Macclesfield have yet to lose a game away to Bristol Rovers and determined defending saw them safely to a point.

With both attacks finding it hard to land a shot on target, this was always a battle of the midfields which did not come to life until two vital changes.

With just over an hour gone, Bristol Rovers sharpened their attack by sending on 11 goal Junior Agogo while a Macclesfield responded by sending on Matthew Tipton, last season's player of the year, to take over from Danny Whitaker.

The change for the visitors almost brought a goal when Mike Sheron set up Tipton for a shot from the left of goal. But it was too straight and Kevin Miller had no problems in collecting it.

With neither side getting their act together infront of goal, so much of the midfield work ran to waste.

Rovers, after knocking four goals past Chester in the week settled for taking long range shots in the hope of unsettling the Silkmen.

Helped by some miscued punching by home keeper Miller, Macclesfield ran up three early corners. From the last of them, Jonathan Parkin was rebuked by an over fussy referee for querying an offside ruling and Ian Brightwell was spoken to for an incident on the touch line.

The Silkmen had signed centre-back Greg Strong from Boston but he stayed on the bench as 18-year-old Andrew Teague who made his debut earlier in the week against Lincoln, had another impressive game in the back three.

Rovers improved once Junior Agogo had arrived and he almost snatched the extra points in the final minute with a header just a shade too high when Jamie Forrester found him with a deep ball from the left.

Veteran Mike Sheron with his pace always caused problems to the home defence but his 14 goal partner Parkin was always too closely policed by Dave Savage to get into the game.