Josh Griffiths details career first after Barnsley heroics as Bristol Rovers progress in FA Cup

Bristol Rovers' FA Cup hero Josh Griffiths has admitted that Saturday's penalty shootout against Barnsley was the first of his professional career as the on-loan goalkeeper saved the decisive spot kick to wrap up a colossal display in between the sticks.

Griffiths faced nine shots on target over the course of 120 minutes, pulling out a number of outstanding saves as the Rovers players ahead of him struggled to create much of note after the opening 10 minutes in which Gatlin O'Donkor hit the post and Shaq Forde forced a decent save.

The defensive effort of the Gas' outfield players deserves praise though as they remained resilient, particularly when defending set pieces which had been a major issue earlier this campaign.

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Once stand-in Rovers captain Luke McCormick had won the toss to ensure the shootout would take place in front of the 294 travelling Gasheads after two hours of goalless football, it felt almost inevitable that the Gas would see themselves into the third round with Griffiths in unstoppable form.

Barnsley midfielder Adam Phillips hit the post with the first kick before Chris Martin, Ruel Sotiriou, Scott Sinclair and Shaq Forde all scored as well as another three Reds players before Griffiths guessed right to deny Josh Earl and secure progression for Rovers.

Speaking post-match, on experiencing penalty shootouts, the West Brom loanee confessed: "Not many times in my professional career. I don't think any, if I'm honest. Yeah, I do think it's something goalkeepers relish.

"You've got the chance to be the hero or the one that gets us through. So yeah, it's annoying if you don't save one but luckily I managed to save one and it was a decisive one.

"Obviously it's nice to save a penalty. We did our research a little bit with Scott [Brown] the goalie coach in the week and yeah, guessed right and luckily it was within reaching distance.

"I've got to say, I didn't know it was the winning pen, to be honest," the goalkeeper added. "And then the lads ran towards me and obviously I was delighted. So yeah, it was nice to save it and top off a decent performance.

"That was my focus. Just try and save as many as I can or even one gives us a chance. Obviously, with them missing the first one. It was advantage us straight away and, you know, I knew if I saved one more, we'd win. I back the lads to the score so that's how it went."

Dave Horseman, who led the team alongside Wayne Carlisle with Matt Taylor taking a leave of absence due to a family emergency, admitted after the game that the feeling of winning a cup tie on penalties is the best way to progress and prior to the match revealed that Rovers would be working on their penalties in the build-up.

All four Gas players who stepped up took excellent spot kicks which had also been the same earlier this season when there was a shootout at the Mem with Tottenham Under-21s in the EFL Trophy before Jake Garrett saw the decisive kick saved at 6-5.

With Barnsley giving limited chances away and dominating most of the proceedings, it felt as though Rovers were going to have to rely on penalties in order to progress with that hard prepatory work paying dividends.

"Yeah, fairly deep," Griffiths revealed when asked how much work went into analysing the Reds' potential penalty takers in preparation for the game. "On Thursday, we sat and watched every penalty taker. We were in the office a long time and you know, we talked to each other and think, is he gonna go this way? His last one was there. It's not giving away secrets because I'm sure every goalie does it but yeah, that's what we did. I'd say the research was pretty good.

"It's a nice feeling," the goalkeeper added. "Yeah, it's a good feeling and as I said, I didn't know but when they all ran, the fans are behind our goal, which was another advantage. I think Macca won the toss. So we were in front of our fans, they were brilliant by the way. I know it's turned out to be a long evening but I'm glad they've got something to go back with."

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