Rovers James O'Connor-i've enjoyed my time as centre back

27 April 2010 10:11
Doncaster Rovers defender James O'Connor can't believe that Sunday's game at Swansea will bring the curtain down on the club's second season of Championship football. "The season has absolutely flown by," said O'Connor."It doesn't seem five minutes ago that the lads were stepping on to the bus for our first game of the season at Watford back in August."O'Connor had a delayed start to the season and didn't make his first appearance of the campaign until the game against West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns in mid-September.He had to wait until the derby game at Bramall Lane at the begining of October to make his starting debut for the season, standing in for the injured Gareth Roberts.With James Chambers continuing to impress in his preferred right-back role, O'Connor was back on the bench when left-back Roberts returned.He was due to start on the bench in the game at Plymouth two days after Bonfire Night, but was drafted in as an emergency centre-back when Jason Shackell pulled out.O'Connor, who had played at centre-back for Aston Villa Youth team, played so well in the role that he has become a virtual ever-present there since.And now his comeback has been capped by being named player of the season. "I still see myself as a right-back but I've enjoyed playing at centre-back," he said. "I've learnt a lot playing there and I've had some good reviews. Being able to play in two positions can only help my career because it helps at a club like Doncaster, which has only got a small squad, if you have got players who are versatile."A lot of full-backs move inside later in their career when they lose a yard of pace. Not everyone is successful, but I've proved that I can play there.""I've enjoyed the season and it was good to get back to winning ways against Scunthorpe on Saturday."We've been a bit unlucky in terms of results in some of our recent games and we should have picked up more points than we did."Just before Easter we were in eighth place and we felt that we could sneak into the play-offs."I know people were saying that the odds were against us, but Blackpool were on the same number of points as we were and they have climbed into the top-six which just shows that it was possible."Although Rovers can't now finish any higher than 10th they can still have a big say in whether Blackpool or Swansea secure the final play-off place."The battle for the play-offs has gone down to down to the wire," he said. "All the pressure will be on Swansea because they need to win.

Source: FOOTYMAD