Clarke blames defeat on Rovers' poor finishing

DARRELL Clarke expressed his frustration at Bristol Rovers' finishing following their 1-0 defeat against Gillingham. The Gas created numerous chances on Saturday afternoon but were unable to find a way past Jake Turner in the opposition goal.

- WILL MURRAY [e-mail]

The first-half saw both teams go close, with Rovers' Stephan Negru missing a gilt-edged chance in the 36th minute and the visitors' Max Clark, missing from the penalty spot.

However, Clark's second-half effort resulted in the game's decisive goal, as the Gills moved up to sixth. For Rovers, the defeat was a fifth in a row in League Two, leaving them 17th after 15 games. In that timeframe, the Gas have only scored two goals and Clarke, inset right, acknowledged that the lack of killer edge in the final third is something that is holding the team back.

He said: "I thought the performance at times was decent, but we don't want the hard luck stories. We have to do better in the final third. We dominated large parts of the game [we] have to be better with our forward-thinking play at times to create more opportunities, although we've created enough opportunities to obviously score a few goals today.