Gillingham manager Mark Bonner wasn’t shying away from the fact that his team were second-best on the day at Doncaster.
The Gills failed to create many meaningful chances against Doncaster, despite a late rally with a flurry of attacking substitutions, and were beaten 1-0.
Report: Doncaster 1-0 Gillingham
“We haven’t played at a level good enough to win the game,” he admitted.
“We huffed and puffed, chased the game as best we could. We put a lot of (attacking) players on the pitch to try and help us, probably too many really in the end.
“We had not enough threat in the game, really, to be honest.
“We’ve had a lot of the ball and in periods we got some control of it, but their transitions to attack are outstanding. We didn’t play with enough personality at times in the first half, anywhere near.”
Doncaster bossed the early periods but didn’t take the lead until the 30th minute.
It was a fairly simple goal, a cross to the back post where Jordan Gibson nodded it down for predatory finisher Billy Sharp to do what he does best from six yards.
Bonner said: “The goal was soft, really soft, and we were too soft without the ball at times.
“Then, just knowing when to play quick, when to be slower, when to get some control, when to go direct, when to play through, when at the end to just serve the box and play diags. Those little bits of decision-making just looked off at times.
“The game was fairly balanced in certain areas, but they’ve created more than us. They certainly deserved to win the game.
“We haven’t done enough to win it or to score in the game in the end. A couple of set play, threatening moments, but little else.
“Loads of endeavour to try and to try and get something, but there were moments in the game where their play was a level above ours.”
There were plenty of moments that Bonner picked out where decision making could have been better, something he’ll be pointing out to his team during the debrief this week.
He said: “The disappointment (is) when you get set-play moments and you don’t deliver with quality when we’ve got it, or the goalie can take it on uncontested against the crowd or we’re playing with eight strikers and we play three passes around the back rather than get the ball forward and give it away and give them a chance to press, or we go into a wider position and we don’t cross it, or we get a chance for a long throw and we play short and try and find our way in the box when we’ve got three giants at the top end of the pitch.
“Just moments like that, really. And to be fair, the game’s chaos at that point (towards the end) and we’ve made it chaos. because we’ve put loads of players on the pitch in a system or a style that we haven’t looked at at all been able to so it becomes a bit chaotic.
“We just hope that our common sense a little bit comes to the fore in times there, but it wasn’t wasn’t to be.”
