Grant McCann calls for Doncaster to become more streetwise after derby defeat

Grant McCann wants his Doncaster players to become more streetwise after missing the opportunity to take something from their derby against Barnsley following a 2-1 defeat.

McCann felt Rovers could have cut out the visitors’ two goals at the start of the attacks if they had shown similar ruthlessness to their opponents.

“Their winner is so frustrating for us,” McCann said. “The boys know Patrick Kelly because he was on loan with us last season. They know he’ll try to toe things around you, nutmeg you and get away in the middle of the park.

“He did that and we should just take the foul.

“It took us 94 minutes to get a yellow card. I don’t want the players to get booked but it was a Yorkshire derby and they had three or four booked when we’re breaking.

“These are things that we have to get better at.

“That said, I thought the second half performance was really good and everyone in the stadium can see we should have had a penalty for Billy Sharp.

“Why would the EFL’s top marksman fall when he’s in one-v-one? Billy has received the ball and the lad has come through the back of him.

“We’re coming out on the wrong end of a game I thought we played really well in.”

A bout of illness may have led to top marksman Keillor-Dunn not starting for Barnsley but it did not stop him from deciding the game.

He came off the bench to net his 10th goal of the season, and Hourihane said: “There was an illness in camp and he was involved in that. To ask him to start this afternoon wouldn’t have been right.

“I wanted to get a real positive half-an-hour to 40 minutes if the game needed it and he came on looking strong, scored with a really tidy finish and finished the game with real energy.

“Credit to David McGoldrick as well, having to start the game because he was ill in the week as well, but he set the press, the intensity and the quality off from the get-go.

“I think between the both of them it was right for them to share the load.

“It’s massive to get back to winning ways in the league. This block of games has been really challenging for us with it being stop-start in the league and it’s been hard to get that momentum going for us.

“Hopefully after the international break, we’ll look a lot stronger.”