Is there something in the half time tea at Bescot, or did the new man in charge see enough in the first 45 minutes and decide to do something? I don’t think we’ll ever know, but there was something there for Money to work on.

First things first, however. We were terrible in the first half.

Kinsella had gone again with what seems to be his favoured option of two defensive midfielders and two wide men. Keates and Mills were in the middle and Wright and Kris Taylor wide. It was a complete disaster. Mills sat deep in a “Christmas Tree”, with Keates “creating”. Both were completely over run. Keates created absolutely nothing and, as Mills got isolated, he dropped further and further back, leaving th midfield deserted of red shirts. Accordingly, the Barnsley midfield completely dominated possession, Wright and the two up front (despite some good runs from both) never saw the ball. Taylor looked like a Conference standard player, especially as he got pushed back to try and double up on Shuker, as Fox was being given the complete run around by him, and got slowly worse as the half went on. On the other flank, Pead was also failing to get a grip with his man, although he was at least throwing himself at the ball to block the chances Barnsley were getting and, in the middle, Gerrard was making a complete mockery of his player of the season award.

Positives? Oakes made one tremendous save, we were throwing bodies at the ball in the box to block shots - and then there was Roper. He was immense. Three times, forwards got clear, only for “Ropes” to somehow get back and wrap a leg round to get the ball away. Whoever thinks he’s slow after this needs their eyes examining. Without him, we could have been 3 or 4 down at the break, with only a shot from Demontagnac, who replaced the injured Wright, in reply.

Eventually, something had to crack and Taylor gave away an unecessary free kick wide on our left and, as the ball came over, Gerrard (not for the first time), lost his man completely, giving him a free header. There was no one to rescue us this time.

Kinsella’s first reaction after the goal was to look up into the stand, as if to ask Money what he could do. Whether Money took a hand or not, something changed second half.

Off came the completely ineffective Taylor for Daryl Taylor and, although the personnel couldn’t be changed, with only Standing on the bench, the formation could, with Mills pushing up alongside Keates creating a more solid look. After that, we started to match the visitors, as the pace on both flanks was really troubling them. Barrowman was desperately unlucky with a chance which went just past the far post, created by Demontagnac and we were looking far more threatening. At the same time, Barnsley began to look a lot more nervous and, in the process, the foul count began to rise. The referee had kept his cards in his pocket in the first half and hadn’t got a grip on the game at all (Nardiello’s continual whinging going unpunished, for example). Lots of players were soon to regret that.

Eventually, the ball found Daryl Taylor int he box, he hesitated when he should have hit it first time, but the full back obligingly bought him down for a definite penalty. Keates stuck it away with aplomb.

Now it became end to end stuff, with the Saddlers having the edge. Constable replaced Barrowman, who had made a lot of good runs, but hadn’t looked like getting onto anything in the box (and had pulled out of one challenge on the keeper). James had a tremendous shot tipped around the post and we had a shout for a penalty, but tragedy was to come. Despite the fact we were coping better, Pead was skinned once too often and, as the player broke into the box, Taylor gave away a silly penalty with a trip. His foot was nowhere near the ball and I have no idea what he was thinking about.

To top matters off, after going 2 - 1 down from the resulting spot kick, the referee lost control of the game completely and started dishing out yellow cards like confetti. One of them turned out to be Roper’s second, for an off the ball incident and, despite all of the effort, ten men were not going to claw this back. It’s not often a player sent off gets Man Of the Match, but he thoroughly deserved it yesterday, as we’d have been buried first half without him.

The verdict? A game of two halves, but the second showed a lot of promise.