Gillingham manger Ronnie Jepson gives his reaction to today's 0-2 defeat at the hands of Doncaster Rovers at The Earth Stadium.

Speaking to BBC Radio Kent after the game he said: "I thought we were second best against a good Doncaster team. If Gary Mulligan had been able to stay on and we'd have had a few more fit it might have made a difference but I thought it was men against boys at times today. Credit to the lads though they came and had a go.

Jepson's preparations were hampered on Friday when Danny Spiller pulled out through sickness. Added to injuries and Darren Byfield's suspension the manager really was struggling to name a squad.

He said: ""It's incredible what's happening right now, what with the Byfield suspension, Neil Harris, Matty Jarvis and Alan Pouton injuries and Danny Spiller pulling out through sickness and Diarrhoea on Friday morning. One or two of the boys have also had that bug and in an ideal world I might have left a few of those boys at home. But I couldn't because of the size of our squad."

Talking about Doncaster's first goal Jepson said: "Jason Brown is adamant that the ball never crossed the line and so are a few of the other players. Jason had two hands on the ball at one stage and the lad has kicked it out of his hands.

"But it's no good feeling sorry for yourselves, you have got to take it on the chin. It's just three points at the end of the day and we have got 12 games left where we need to get the required amount of points to stay in this league."

Jepson is hopeful that Gary Mulligan, who was stretchered off with a leg injury is not too seriously hurt.

Jepson said:"Gary Mulligan has had a bad knock. We've sent Jon Wallis to hospital with him and we are just waiting for phone call. Simon Webster has said that Gary couldn't feel his ankle and he felt a click but we'll have to wait for the doctor's diagnosis on that."

Injuries and suspensions apart though Jepson was keen to stress that he isn't making any excuses and that today's performance wasn't good enough

He concluded: "I don't want to wash over what's happened today because it wasn't a good performance. I don't want to make too many excuses but the things that are happening at this moment in time with suspensions and injuries are quite incredible. But we'll get over it, stick together and come through it.

"It was a poor first half performance and two poor goals to give away through a lack of concentration - that's if the first one went in. But the lads stuck at it in the second half and dug in when it would have been easy to be on the end of a five or six.

"As a team going forward we lacked a presence once Gary Mulligan went off and it was always going to be difficult."