TWO away days, two hard luck stories. Hope this isn't going to become a recurring complaint or it could be a long old season.

There's an old saying in golf which reminds me of Rovers play at the moment: "You drive for show and putt for dough."

Roughly translated, this means it's no use crunching a 300 yard drive down the fairway and playing in a precise iron three feet from the pin if you then proceed to undo all your previous good work by missing a little tiddler of a putt. At the end of the day it's the score that counts.

It IS the score that counts and despite good overall performances we're currently looking at a nervy sort of total of four points instead of at least double that sum. At the moment we're undoing all our own good work by a distinct lack of ruthlessness at both ends of the pitch.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we could do with keeping a few clean sheets and need to cut down the number of free kicks conceded around the penalty area.

Of far greater concern however remains our shot shy strike force. We all know there are lies, damn lies and statistics. However after 360 minutes of football, out of five strikers, only Nathan Blake, coming off the bench at Derby, has found the back of the net. That says it all really.

Whether you're Ashley Ward and Kevin Davies, or the far more mobile (and hopefully far more capable) combination of Matt Jansen and Corrado Grabbi, as a striker you're essentially paid huge amounts of money to put the ball in the back of the net rather than run around a bit (Ash and Lard) or indulge in fancy footwork and beat people several times over (Matty and Cicco).

We saw the result of failure to find the back of the net and grind out results (especially away from home) two seasons ago.

On Saturday, apart from the obvious misses, I thought numerous clear cut shooting chances went begging as we constantly looked for one extra pass too many.

It is surely time for the front men to stand up, be counted and take some responsibility. We obviously can't rely on the midfield to get the goals all season.

I feel it would help to get back to basics and be far more direct. Just single-mindedly concentrate on getting the ball in the back of the net. Get in the danger area as often as possible. Once there, head down and pull trigger whenever an opportunity arises.

Some will end up in row Z but a fair proportion will fly in and the confidence will return. We've seen from the balance of play of the first four games that, assuming we can find our shooting boots in front of goal, the Premiership should hold absolutely no fears for us.

Until next week signing off in the hope that coming soon to a ground near us will be "Goal avalanche" starring Messrs Jansen, Grabbi, Bent, Blake and Hughes.

PS Andy from Sunderland game, sorry mate, out of the question to give you a mention, the Sports Editor would never allow it.

PPS If anyone is still awaiting the return of friends, relatives or loved ones from Sunderland, I doubt it's the case they're up to no good, they're probably still trying to extricate themselves from the ridiculously narrow concourses at the otherwise superb Stadium of Light.