This was a hard-earned victory with a solid away performance as Bristol Rovers a decent sniff at goal all afternoon.
We have moaned a bit at how Graham Coughlan has created the wingless wonders but his system has picked up points from away games ever since he took over last December.
Tom Nichols and Jonson Clarke-Harris had to feed off scraps all afternoon but the stats still showed Rovers had 16 shots on goal compared to the Imps 10, with only one shot on target for the home side across the 96 minutes.
It was good to see Mark Little return to the side while it was no surprise that Ed Upson was back at the expense of Alex Rodman although Jordi van Stappershoef could consider himself a bit unlucky to lose out to Anssi Jaakkola. But it is good to have competition for the green jersey.
Our system, particularly with the lack of creativity in midfield, meant there was no let-up for our in the first half. Certainly after the break Rovers did come more into the game.
Just like last week, Clarke-Harris appeared to stroll around at times, perhaps carrying an injury, so it must be a problem for defenders not knowing if the big man is going to burst into life at any moment and one of his only shots in the first half went out for a throw-in.
But just when he was needed the striker shielded a long ball very well with a defender on his back and turned brilliantly to lay on a great through pass for Nichols who was clumsily brought down.
The home fans moaned but they should have seen the soft penalty Accrington got against us last week. On Saturday, JCH made no mistake and who cares if our only goal this season has been from the spot as it earned us three points.
I found the air raid warning siren Lincoln sounded at corners was amusing and something a bit different but our defence was up to the aerial challenge.
It was good that the Rovers President's Club made Alex Kilgour their man of the match . This was a tough day for our defenders and the youngster came through with flying colours.
It will be interesting to see if the stay away fans will be back tomorrow night against Gillingham. What do they want, we now have the goalscoring striker everyone was crying out for, an away win under our belts and the return of Jack Bonham and Alex Jakubiak with the visitors.
They can’t all be washing their hair on a Tuesday night.
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