1. Freestone
2. Price
3. Howard #
4. Bound
5. Smith
6. Romo *
7. Jenkins
8. Savarese @
9. Watkin
10. Cusack
11. Thomas

    ---

12. Jones J
13. Coates *53
14. Roberts
15. De Vulgt @73
16. O'Leary #72

 Rotherham

1. Gray
2. Warne
3. Watson
4. Hurst
5. Scott
6. Garner
7. Artell
8. Lee
9. Robins
10. Branston
11. Talbot #

    ---

12. Connor
13. Beech
14. Monkhouse
15. Hudson #88
16. Wilsterman

(Pictues by Dave Williams (Northants Jack)

About 120 jacks made the trip to a rainswept and bitting Millmoor. The Rotherham faithful gave the teams a rousing welcome and a minutes silence for Terry Coles was respectfully observed.

Swansea lined up: Freestone, Howard, Smith, Bound, Price, Thomas, Cusack, Romo, Jenkins, Saverese and Watkin.

Rotherham quickly demonstrated that are a team playing with some confidence having successfully managed the transition to second division football. With less than 5 minutes gone some neat build up on the right stretched the Swansea defence and Robins was rewarded from close range with his seventh of the season.

With Rotherham asserting control of the midfield and looking a yard or two quicker to every loose ball than Swansea, the pattern of play was already looking ominous. However, on 18 minutes Watkin worked himself a yard of space and bent the ball past the outstretched Gray in the Rotherham goal from 20 yards out.

Rather than acting as an catalyst for the Swans, the goal seemed to push Rotherham up a gear. A combination of quick passing and a good movement caused Swansea problems. This was compounded by an apparent lack of understanding of roles amongst the Swansea players. This was particularly evident for the second Rotherham goal. Price who had taken up a position in the hole just behind the front two, left acres of space for Rotherham to attack down their left and despite a valliant attempt by Thomas to provide cover, crisp passing made the most of the space available and the move ended with Garner scoring with apparent ease.

The final 15 minutes of the half were painful. Rotherham looked likely to extend their lead with each wave of attack. The most disappointing element of this period was that Romo who had shown signs of invention going forward was now playing extremely deep, wide on the right to provide cover for Price who was having a torrid time at right back.

The second half began with more sustained Rotherham pressure and the Millers were rewarded with two quick goals. The first from Watson followed the pattern of the earlier goals with quick interplay stretching our flat footed defence. The second, a solo effort saw Alan Lee get his first goal for Rotherham.

The final 30 minutes of the game showed what Swansea are capable of. Romo was replaced by Coates who demonstrated renewed vigour and determination, he made some excellent runs at the Rotherham defence and linked well with Cusack and Thomas around the penalty area. Watkins (who worked hard throughout the 90mins)battled for every ball, Price showed that he is much better attacking than playing a defensive role and Thomas who took control of the game looked to create everytime he got the ball. Saveresse and Howard were replaced by DeVulgt and O'Leary. The Swansea pressure was rewarded with a calmly taken goal by Bound from 6 yards with 10 minutes to go. The game could easily have ended as a draw. In the final momments a rebound off a Thomas freekick should have been finished but the close range effort was hit straight at the keeper and a blatant and deliberate handball in the area was missed by the referee.

Rotherham are not a side blessed with stars and extremely skillful individuals. They are however up to 4th in the Division because they are work hard, are well organised with clear pattern of play and keep it simple (give the ball quickly and move into space). Some lessons here for Swansea, I feel.

Believe it or not, I turned down a ticket for Leeds v Barcelona to attend this match, and there was a point, about 10 minutes into the second half, when I really wished I was 20 miles further up the M1. I should have known...Bethan had come down with flu and couldn't travel to the game...the last time that happened we got stuffed 7 - 0 by Fulham! That we were spared that sort of scoreline tonight was due as much to Rotherham slacking off for the last half hour as it was with the Swans efforts to get back into it.

The Swans line up was an interesting one, with a packed midfield set up to accommodate Cusack, Romo, Thomas and Jenkins. This unsurprisingly gave us no width, but remarkably also gave us no steel in the middle, as Rotherham immediately took control with their pinpoint passing, agressive tackling and pacy running, which saw them continously exploiting the wide open spaces of the wings. We were almost instantly prised open by a scything midfield move which led to a low cross (rather foruitously) turned home by Mark Robins. The rampant Millers nearly doubled their lead a couple of minutes later when Kevin Watson struck a low shot which was parried by Freestone, and soon after he was tested again by a low shot from Lee. It was totally against the run of play when Steve Watkin brought immense joy to the 80 - 90 Jacks behind the goal when he struck a terrific dipping voley into the top corner to give us a barely deserved equaliser.

For a few minutes this lifted the Swans, but is was short lived. Rotherham's midfield was totally in control and continually seeking to feed their wide players. On 28 minutes this worked to great effect when a sweeping ball led to a curling left wing cross, headed home powerfully by Darren Garner. After this, we attempted to play our way back into it, but every pass went astray, every attempt to control the ball went wrong and every run was mistimed.

The second half began with some optimism, but this was quickly squashed by a Rotherham side clearly topped up on Shredded Wheat during the interval. In their first attack of note, Freestone was forced into a good low save, but Kevin Watson was first to the rebound and struck home a third. We responded by taking off the ineffective Romo and replacing himn with Coates, clearly in attempt to give us some width. He immediately created a good chance with a great run and cross, but there was no Swans shirt to convert. Our resistance, and the contest, were ended shortly after, when Alan Lee cut in from the right, beat several Swans defenders (some of them twice I think) and hit a low shot seemingly right through Freestone.

Our response was a creative substitution in which DeVulght cam on at left back for Howard (presumably prepping him for Howard's suspension) and O'Leary replaced the ineffective Saverese. This sparked something of an improvement, and for the rest of the half, the Swans pressed forward against a Rotherham team seemingly content with their lead. We seemed to be denied a good penalty shout when Garner appeared to handle, and a great run from Thomas was concluded by a rather fluffed shot. But it was another penetrative run from the ever-willing Thomas which led to the corner from which Bound pulled one back with a good low strike. We nearly sneaked another shortly after this, when Cusack hit a low cross which was cleared at the near post. Shortly after though, Coates went off injured, and the reduction to 10 men ended our late bid for respectability. The improved last quarter drew some applause from the Swans contingent, but in truth, this was a wholly inadequate effort all round.

Freestone - 6 Seemed a bit rattled by the abuse he was getting
Price - 5 Continuing the experiment with Price at full back, he returned to his old dreamy ways.
Howard - 5 Struggled to cope with the pace of the Rotherham attack
Bound - 6 Did his best to hold it together (now back as top scorer!)
Smith - 6 As above
Romo - 5 A couple of nice touches, but no influence on the game
Cusack - 5 As above
Jenkins - 5 As above
Thomas - 8 The only real impact on the game; a rousing second half
Watkin - 7 A good goal, and plenty of aggression
Savarese - 4 We were actually quite pleased to see him replaced by Lee DeVulght!!! We won't give up hope for Gio yet though!

Coates - 6 Some decent forward running
DeVulght - 6 Pretty tidy
O'Leary - 7 very influential, but against a team that had stopped bothering by then.