Millers lose out to Owls

Rotherham United lost their first friendly at Don Valley yesterday evening to neighbours Sheffield Wednesday.

The Millers started the first half with six of their eight new signings while the Owls had their four new signings starting. Although the Millers started brightly with Chris Holroyd firing across goal, it was Conrad Logan, in the Millers goal, who had to make a split-second decision and did well to punch out from Lewis Buxton. Ex-Miller Chris Sedgwick had a shot that went just wide and shortly afterwards David Prutton fired over and Jermaine Johnson saw a smashed a shot over. The Millers best chance of the game came when Marcus Marshall, starting at right back, dispossessed Gary Madine and fed Adam Le Fondre who found Ben Pringle on his own but he narrowly missed the target. Before the half ended, Jermaine Johnson had another shot that went just over.

In the opening minutes, Troy Brown did well to stop Madine from getting the first goal. A couple of minutes later, a Sedgwick corner found Buxton who headed against the bar but was on hand to back heel the ball into the back of the net past Andy Warrington, who had come on at half-time to replace Logan in goal. Minutes later the Owls should have been two up when Amond nipped into the area but lobbed the ball wide and ten minutes later Warrington made a good save from Johnson before making another good save from the resulting corner. On the sixty-fifth minute the Owls finally got the better of Warrington when Madine headed home from a Sedgwick corner. Warrington did well a little later to deny Jermaine Johnson again and then did superb to save from a Reda Johnson header. In the final five minutes the Millers halved the score when Danny Schofield crossed the ball which Le Fondre met with a diving header to put the ball past Nicky Weaver.

MILLERS
Logan (Warrington)
Marshall (Tonge),
Brown
Cresswell
Smith
Schofield
Foster (Evans)
Taylor
Pringle (Harrison)
Le Fondre (Denton)
Holroyd (Grabban)
Subs not used – Annerson, Bradley, Gaughan, Hall.

OWLS
Weaver
Buxton
Jones
Johnson
Bennett
Sedgwick
Prutton
Semedo (O’Connor)
Johnson
Madine
Morrison (Amond)
Subs not used – O’Donnell, Reynolds, Beevers