“AND the man at the back said everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz”.

Sweet. Or not, as the case may be.

Had George Elokobi done what he did to James Coppinger at 1am in ‘Flares’, ‘Legends’, ‘Heroes’, ‘The Canal Club’, or ‘Mezzanine’ then he’d have had a dozen bouncers and the police on his tail.

If he had charged at the Doncaster midfielder on the dance floor of the newly-opened ‘New York New York’ club, ‘The Beach’, or perhaps ‘The Planet’, then you’d understand ten of the fallen bloke’s pals getting all hot under the collar and wanting a word in his ear.

But he didn’t.

The barrel-chested one, whose biggest crime to this point had perhaps been to wear slightly too pointier a pair of shoes, thundered into Coppinger like all good defenders used to do: eyes on the ball, gloriously oblivious to the pain that might come his or his opponent’s way should he mistime it. And didn’t he just mistime this one. The key word here being: ‘just’.

All hell broke loose. One or two Rovers players and even the home bench sniffed the chance of a sending off should they complain to the officials with gusto. They produced a pantomime performance of cacophonous villains that would have made Christopher Biggins or Lionel Blair seem positively demure. So George had to go.

In days gone by, when men were men and footballers weren’t so unsporting, it wouldn’t have been a card. But times have moved on.

In days gone by Matt Jarvis wouldn’t have dropped to his knees as if the aforementioned Biggins had jumped on his shoulders.

But it was in the penalty area and in today’s world was a penalty.

In times gone by Nenad Milijas’ shot might have dribbled towards the goalline. But we don’t kick a pig’s bladder any more and this Umbro variety fizzed into the top corner from 30 yards like an Exocet homing in on a foreign ship.

The Serbian’s missile really should have been the talk of the tie. Or for that matter Billy Sharp or James Hayter’s clinical finishes, although the latter’s volley came about after some poor marking and a poor attempted headed clearance by Elokobi (there’s a thread developing here).

When the dust settled on the dust-up, the spot-kick, the two superbly-taken home strikes and the Goal of the Season contender (although Dave Jones’ free-kick against Stoke may still pip it) then a replay was about the right result.