Here’s Jamie Jackson’s match report from the Keepmoat.
Clinical job done by Palace: they scored their goals at key stages of the first-half, then spent the second holding Doncaster at arm’s length. The League One side were game enough, but their propensity for shooting straight at the goalkeeper made what could have been a ticklish afternoon for Wayne Hennessey rather straightforward in the end. Palace into the hat for the quarter-final draw on Monday evening.
Full-time: Doncasterl 0-2 Crystal Palace
Peeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins +2: Again, for what must be at least the sixth time, Doncaster shoot - Sadlier this time - straight at Hennessey.
90 mins: Van Aanholt and Benteke play a neat one-two, but the return from the striker is just a bit too heavy. Three minutes of injury time to come.
89 mins: Sub for Doncaster: May is off, and the magnificently-named teenager Rieves Boocock comes on for a few minutes.
87 mins: Hennessey winds up and gives a clearance the big one: so big, in fact, that it goes straight through to Marosi in t’other goal.
85 mins: Doncaster get a free-kick on the left, which Sadlier sends over dangerously, Hennessey starts to come for it then changes his mind, and is a bit lucky the ball was too strong for May at the far stick.
83 mins: Not saying the game is winding down, but the BBC have just shown us two lingering close-ups of the floodlights.
81 mins: Kouyate deliciously spins and leaves Whiteman as if he’s a training cone, so Whiteman does the only thing he can think of: he cynically legs him up. He is, of course, booked.
79 mins: Change for Palace: Townsend is withdrawn, James McArthur comes on.
78 mins: Marquis neatly flicks the ball past Van Aanholt, considers a couple of options but tries to shoot low towards the near-post, but again it’s an easy save for Hennessey.
77 mins: The first thing Benteke does is miscontrol a Milivojevic pass. Ach, poor old Christian.
75 mins: Muffing that chance is more or less Batshuayi’s last involvement: he’s off, and Benteke is on.
74 mins: Corner now from the left for Palace, Kouyate rises brilliantly at the back stick but the header skims off his bonce and out for a goal kick. He’s irked: that was a big chance and he’s lucky that it probably won’t make a difference.
72 mins: For the first time in what feels like ages, Palace attack. Townsend threads a nicely-weighted pass through to Batshuayi, clean in on goal, but his first touch is terrible and means he can’t get his shot in, going round the keeper but in the end lucky to get a corner.
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68 mins: Andrew whips over a terrific cross from the left but, even with Kane lurking nearby, gets there first to head away. They’re plugging away, but you get the feeling it’s a bit like trying to knock a wall down with a rolling pin.
66 mins: Sadlier is straight on and down the left, and his cross results in yet another corner for Donny. Marquis can’t quite reach the cross when it comes in and it’s cleared: sums the game for the home side up a bit, in that they have got into another decent position but can’t make it into anything.
64 mins: Double swap for Doncaster: Tommy Rowe and Kieran Sadlier replace Coppinger and Crawford.
63 mins: Doncaster keep the ball for a bit, eventually working the ball to Kane in enough space to line up a shot, but like many of their efforts today seem to have been, it’s straight at Hennessey who saves easily.
61 mins: Kouyate’s first task is to mop up a mess left by Van Aanholt, languidly chasing May down after he nips past the Palace left-back.
59 mins: Sub for Palace: Ayew is off, replaced by Cheikou Kouyate, back after a couple of weeks out with an ankle twang.
57 mins: More pressure from Doncaster: from a corner, Schlupp has to throw himself into a clearing header, which falls to Kane and his own header loops just over the bar. The good news is that goal on the stroke of half-time hasn’t completely knocked Doncaster onto their collective bottom.
54 mins: Great run by Coppinger in from the left, he semi-nutmegs Milivojevic, collects the loose ball then shoots, but it’s deflected wide. They’re keeping at it, are Doncaster.
52 mins: Frustrated by that miss, May has a little kick at Van Aanholt then pushes his opponent away. The Dutchman looks thoroughly baffled by the whole affair, peering rather curiously at his cross combatant.
51 mins: Doncaster go close twice! Whiteman tries one of those wobble shots where he hits it straight from miles out, and Hennessey has to keep his wits to punch it out. From the corner, Downing wins a header to send the ball towards goal, where Marquis is waiting to nod home, but in ahead of him nips May to try scoring himself, but ht sends it over the bar. Oh me oh May!
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48 mins: Palace on the attack, as Townsend pops up on the left and clips a cross to the back post. Batshuayi is there but it’s headed behind for a corner, from which the ball breaks out to Van Aanholt on the edge of the box. The less said about his attempted volley the better, mind.
46 mins: The players are out, and we’re back underway for the second-half. Let’s see how much air that late first-half goal has taken out of the atmosphere.
Looks like Doncaster are heading out, but at least they’re having a better day than these guys.
Game over, you’d think. Bit of a shame really: Doncaster weren’t exactly monstering their Premier League opponents but they were at least pressing pretty well and creating the odd chance, while Palace looked a little complacent. If the goal hadn’t been scored we might have been in for a competitive second 45, but not really now.
Half-time: Doncaster 0-2 Crystal Palace
Peeeeeeeeeep.
45 mins +1: Nicely worked goal from Palace. Milivojevic clips a nice ball over the Doncaster defence to Townsend at the back post, he heads it across goal where Meyer is waiting in the six-yard box, and he nods into the open goal. Meyer was offside when Milivojevic played his initial ball, one of those curiosities of the law because he was obviously gaining some sort of advantage, but he wasn’t off from Townsend’s set-up so it’s fine by the rules.
GOAL! Doncaster 0-2 Crystal Palace (Meyer 45+1)
Oh, a killer, that one.
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45 mins: One minute of added time. Marquis chases a big ball over the top but it’s too big, and goes through to Hennessey.
44 mins: The half is petering out just a little bit. Neither team have created much in the last few minutes.
42 mins: May tries to dance and trick his way past Dann out on the Doncaster right, but the grizzled veteran just stands there and watches the flicks and half-stepovers, and May duly loses the ball and puts it out for a throw.
40 mins: Interestingly poised at the moment, this game. Doncaster are attacking sporadically but not having much joy in punching through, while Palace have the air of a team who expect to score another one quite shortly. Which could be dangerous for them.
38 mins: Doncaster attack, the ball drops to Kane on the edge of the box but his toe-poked effort is more or less straight at Hennessey. A few moments later a cross finds Coppinger in the box, but his header goes wide.
36 mins: Palace should have a penalty. Van Aanholt speeds down the left on the counter, reaches the byline and cuts a low cross back. Downing slides to block, but leaves his left arm trailing which the ball hits. Knowing full well that he’s in trouble, Downing holds his face as if he’d been bopped on the nose by a championship middleweight, and it seems to work: no penalty is given, despite Mike Dean having a pretty good view of it.
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35 mins: Blair’s error sets Ayew free down the left, but the Doncaster full-back at least scampers his way back to tackle and pour a nice big bucket of water on the fire he started. Dann then has the ball in the Palace left-back slot, but once more the hefty pest that is Marquis presses and forces him into an awful backpass which Hennessey has little chance of keeping out for a corner.
33 mins: Yet another Palace corner, this time from the left. Milivojevic takes, skimmed at head height and Batshuayi finds himself free about ten yards out at the near-post, but his header is blocked. Slack marking from Donny though.
30 mins: Townsend wins a free-kick deepish on the right for Palace, which Meyer swings into the box for Dann again at the back stick, but his header goes wide.
28 mins: Plenty of rough-housing, grappling and jostling in the penalty area from these corners. Not a factor with that one though: Milivojevic curls it out of play. That Andrew deflection from the previous corner had a hint of handball about it, looking at the replays, but would have been exceedingly harsh to give it.
27 mins: Meyer tries a shot from a tight angle to the left of goal, but it’s deflected behind. Milivojevic steps up and skims in the cross, Dann goes up for the header but it came off Andrew’s chest and out for another corner.
26 mins: Batshuayi tries to keep an overhit pass in play at the byline by trying to backheel it, but completely misses and only succeeds in tripping himself up, then caps the slapstick by falling over the advertising boards. Would only have been more complete had he emerged with a custard pie on his mush.
24 mins: Van Aanholt plays a pass back to Hennessey which bobbles around all over the place and the keeper, perhaps put off by the sight of Marquis bearing down on him, completely miscontrols it and concedes a corner. Fortunately for him, said corner fails to beat the first man, again.
22 mins: Decent move by Doncaster is half-cleared by Kelly, it’s spread to May on the left corner of the box and he shoots, but despite the effort swerving and dipping, it swerves and dips well wide of the far post.
21 mins: Ayew breaks into the area from the left, he has Batshuayi and Townsend waiting for a low cross in the middle but for reasons passing understanding he tries a shot from an absurd angle. It’s easily saved, and Townsend is firmly vexed.
20 mins: Doncaster win a corner on the right which they deploy a training ground move from. In the end it’s whipped into the middle and Ward does well to stoop and head behind. They’re not breaking through but the hosts are showing some positive intent.
19 mins: Kane lollipops his way in from the left and spanks a shot towards goal, but it’s blocked and flies behind for a corner. Crawford delivers it, but can’t beat the first man and Ayew heads clear.
16 mins: Donny aim for Big Marquis up top but Dann beats him to the header. Then the wily ol’ fox eases Marquis out of the way after a ball down the left side of the penalty area. He was pegged as Doncaster’s big danger man, and with good reason considering he’s scored 22 goals this season, but it could be a long afternoon for Marquis.
14 mins: Coppinger tries to make inroads from the left corner of the area, but doesn’t quite have the pace/control to get past his marker and has to shift the ball back, from where it’s intercepted.
12 mins: Marquis lumbers purposefully down the right and is knocked over by Schlupp. Doncaster at least not completely cowed by going a goal down.
11 mins: Disappointing goal for the contest, that. Doncaster were just showing signs of making this a spicy one for Palace. Big task to drag things back from here.
8 mins: Decent goal. Milivojevic intercepts a pass midway in Palace’s half, then feeds Schlupp on the halfway line and he drives towards goal. He skips past one, shifts into space beyond another and fires a low shot across goal from the left, it takes a slight deflection and goes into the bottom corner. Clinical stuff.
GOAL! Doncaster 0-1 Crystal Palace (Schlupp 8)
Ah. Sorry.
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7 mins: Coppinger and Herbie Kane - who I believe produced a number of talkies for MGM in the 1920s - harass Ward into giving away a corner. Nothing comes of it, but this is a positive start from Doncaster.
5 mins: No sort of pattern or rhythm to the play just yet. Coppinger, playing his 609th game for Doncaster, is penalised for a late tackle of Milivojevic.
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2 mins: Doncaster are pressing hard from the off, not letting the bigger boys settle on the ball. Sensible, but they shouldn’t get giddy.
1 min: We’re off. Will we finally have some sort of upset in this round of the FA Cup?
There’s a minute’s applause for Gordon Banks. If you missed it, here’s his obituary from these pages, as written by Brian Glanville.
Mike Dean has just given the respective captains - Milivojevic and Marquis - cool guy handshakes. Obviously.
The players are out onto the pitch. There’s a bit of a noise inside the Keepmoat, mainly from those excited Donny supporters but helped by that enthusiastic away following.
All getting a bit giddy in Donny.
Pre-match excitement levels?
— popularSTAND fanzine (@vivarovers) February 17, 2019
We’re currently all applauding a big flag for it being both big, and indeed a flag#FACup
Some pre-match reading: Louise Taylor went to speak to beponytailed big man up top John Marquis, about scoring goals with Doncaster and his previous career:
The young Marquis diversified, briefly, into modelling, promoting Rio Ferdinand’s clothing range. “I did a couple of shoots, hats, T-shirts, stuff like that. It was fun, a good experience and I still speak to Rio now and then but it’s behind me now, I prefer being on the pitch.”
Grant McCann speaks: “It’s obviously a huge task. It’s a great occasion for the fans: it’s for them, really. We’ll stick to our gameplan: if it’s good enough, brilliant, but if not at least we’ve had a go. The players will give everything they’ve got and make their families proud.”
Roy Hodgson speaks: “We’ve done well to get this far, and it will be another tough tie today. I think we’ve chosen a strong team: there were a couple of injuries, a few players unavailable to me, but this is as strong a team as I was hoping I could put out.”
Big news from the Keepmoat.
Neil Shipperley at the bar on the away concourse at the Keepmoat...
— Dominic Fifield (@domfifield) February 17, 2019
Bit of a shame Mallik Wilks isn’t playing today because, as I believe people cooler than me say, he’s been ‘doing bits’ for Donny on loan from Leeds this season. He nearly was named, mind: he had been booked twice in the competition which should trigger a ban, but according to the Doncaster Free Press the club were sent a list of suspended players and he wasn’t on it.
However, they had a rummage through the rule books and said “Erm, are you absolutely sure about that?”, to which the authorities replied “oh yeah ur right he is banned soz lol.” I’m paraphrasing, but it would have been extremely interesting to see what would’ve happened had they relied on the initial reassurance and picked him.
Martin Brown sounds like he approves of the Palace line-up and, unless that’s a typo, the Palace manager too. He writes: “Godson has chosen Meyer which is a real fans choice. After the last game his link play with the forwards was ace. Good call. You should be aware big Palace Ultras turnout today. Palace allocation sold out btw. Good for the FA Cup.”
A pretty strong XI for Palace, then. A few changes, with Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Mamadou Sakho given the afternoon off, Wayne Hennessey back in nets while of course Wilf Zaha is suspended, but other than that it’s more or less the best team Roy Hodgson could have picked, beyond some Benteke/Batshuayi-related hair-splitting.
Team news
Doncaster Rovers
Marosi; Blair, Downing, Anderson, Andrew; Whiteman, Kane, Crawford; May, Marquis, Coppinger. Subs: Jones, Wright, Butler, Rowe, Sadlier, Boocock, Lewis.
Crystal Palace
Hennessey; Ward, Kelly, Dann, Van Aanholt; Meyer, Milivojevic; Schlupp, Townsend, Ayew; Batshuayi. Subs: Guaita, Woods, Tomkins, Riedewald, MacArthur, Kouyate, Benteke.
Referee: Michael Dean (Wirral)
Preamble
What were you doing in 1956? I would wager that for many of you, not only were you not alive, but perhaps your parents were still twinkles too. But if you were around back then, you might be able to remember the last time Doncaster Rovers were at this stage of the FA Cup. Simply by showing up Grant McCann’s side have equalled their best ever performance in the old cup, last achieved back in a bygone era. That time they were a second tier team whereas now they’re in the third, but just like 63 years ago they face a top division team. Today, it’s Crystal Palace. Then, it was Tottenham, Danny Blanchflower and all, who would go on to lose in the semi-final to eventual winners Manchester City, in the Bert Trautmann final.
Back then rotation wasn’t really a thing, even the finest teams treating lower league sides with due caution. But now there are bigger, more financially onerous imperatives, so the Premier League’s finest tend to stick shadow teams out when they have to lower themselves to the scruffy lot.
And yet, this season they don’t really have an excuse. Four of the big six Premier League teams will be out of the tournament by the time the quarter-finals come around, so there could be a clear path through to the semis, possibly even the final. Surely Mr Roy must put out his best and brightest (which admittedly this season is a relative term), rather than pratting around with the reserves? Surely?
“My hope would be that we continue to cherish the FA Cup, we continue to value it and we don’t consistently make comparisons because these competitions are what they are and they also have their importance,” he said this week. We’ll find out how much he cherishes it shortly.
Kick-off: 16.00 GMT
