Bristol Rovers played most of their 3-1 defeat at Chesterfield with 10 men after a controversial decision to send right-back Joel Senior off

Daniel Hargraves Bristol Rovers reporter

15:31, 16 Aug 2025

=Bristol Rovers head coach Darrell Clarke(Image: Kieran McManus/EFL)

Darrell Clarke believes the decision to send off Joel Senior in Bristol Rovers‘ 3-1 defeat at Chesterfield is a decision referee Sam Mulhall will be “disappointed” with after it “determined the game.”

Both sides had good chances to open the scoring in the first half with Promise Omochere missing the target from inside the area while Spireites defender Tom Naylor forced a save from Luke Southwood.

Within a matter of minutes, Rovers found themselves down a man and behind, as Senior was deemed to have denied a clear goalscoring opportunity, a decision that has left supporters baffled…and Clarke too.

Naylor then scored moments later and, despite an equaliser from second half substitute Isaac Hutchinson, two late goals from Kyle McFadzean and Armando Dobra condemned the Pirates to a fourth defeat of the season.

“First half, we frustrate them,” Clarke reflected. “They’re a team that’s a little bit more advanced than us at the minute. [They’ve] been together a lot more than we have. I think we start the first half solid, if not spectacular. We have a great chance with Promise, they have a good chance from a corner. And then the decision obviously changes the dimensions of the game. I’m sure when he looks back at that, he’ll be disappointed because how soft that is, I don’t know. It determines the game.

“I don’t know, there’s already been a few decisions, a few offside calls already this season and a sending off at an inform team, a team that’s going to be right up there this season.

“You need the officials to be on form. I mean, there is one offside even there, where he’s two, three yards offside, and the linesman, the way he’s played on, it baffles me, it really does. But listen, we’ve got to take our medicine.”

Rovers started the second half positively despite their man disadvantage and found their equaliser as Hutchinson turned the ball home at the back-post.

They then struggled to maintain that momentum as Southwood was required to make a string of good saves before eventually Chesterfield scored two late goals, one from a corner and the other from a tidy team move.

“We were staying in the game and trying to get back into it,” the Rovers head coach added. “We did that, but for me, the mentality then after that was not good enough. Really not good for me and I hate victim mentality. We’ve just got to defend right. Bad defending for the second goal from a set-piece should never happen, but it shouldn’t even be a set-piece if we defend it right.

“These are the things the boys have got to learn and have got to learn quickly before we can start calling ourselves a team, because we’re so far behind from being a team from what I’ve seen so far. There’s different reasons for that, but we have to learn, we have to learn quick.”

Rovers now have back-to-back home games in League Two against Oldham Athletic and Cambridge United, starting with the Latics on Tuesday night.