Reach for the Rene

WELL, perhaps I got just a teensy-wheensy bit carried away with my last entry.
The truth is the movement, the cause, the unrelenting force driving my beloved Bristol Rovers towards safety came to a juddering halt last Saturday.
At home to Exeter City.
A team that at one stage weren't fit to lace our boots.
A team who have spent the majority of their history fighting for scraps in the basement bin of the football league.
But a team that, under the wise guidance of manager Paul Tisdale, is now punching above their weight and leaving us floundering in their wake.
I had every hope that another three points against our west country rivals at the Mem would catapult us closer to safety.
As it was a pretty comprehensive defeat left us right back in the myre, with Tuesdays results - in particular a Walsall home win - dumping us back into the relegation places.
How long a week can be in football.
Unstoppable Force 0, Lambs to the Slaughter 2
And suddenly the faults that have been evident to everyone but, it appears, our various management teams and board of directors have come back to haunt us.
Our caretaker player-manager Stuart Campbell missed the game through injury and, more to the point, our top goalscorer and recently installed captain Will Hoskins was also out with an ankle that had swollen to balloon-sized proportions.
In the past, to ease our ailments, we might have reached for the Rene.
But our on-loan bulldozer from Peterborough, Rene Howe, was nowhere to be seen.
It meant Rovers lining up with their only fit striker Jo Kuffour and failing abysmally to put pressure on the Exeter goal.
In truth this could have happened at any time in the season. The longer it goes on the more it seems suicidal folly that we have tried to negotiate our way through 46 games with just two experienced frontmen on our books.
If we had lost Hoskins earlier we would have been down already.
I thought that by sheer Will (pardon the pun) we might have come away from the Exeter game with something.
But it wasn't to be.
That result - and our complete inability to trouble the Exeter defence - bodes badly for the rest of the season.
Meanwhile, the hunt is on to find the Howe, why's and wherefore's of the Rene situation.
Rumours abounded.
He had fallen out with Campbell, the leader of the revolution, in some kind of Animal Farm scenario. "We're all in this together, we're all equal, but some are more equal than others".
He had hot-footed it back to the wilds of Peterborough, never to be seen again.
The club insisted he was still here. He was back in training.
But the evidence appeared to the contrary.
The evidence being twitter and the assertion by our midfielder Chris Lines that "I haven't seen him".
Howe's a pretty big lump. I don't think you could miss him on the practice pitch.
So it was all a bit strange.
Then he turned up. Apparently having recovered from tonsillitis, he played 45 minutes of a reserve game against mighty Cheltenham, which we managed to lose 4-0.
Still, it's a bonus.
Because somehow everything looks so much tougher now.
And it isn't made any easier by our impending trip to Southampton tomorrow.
The Saints are on the verge of securing an automatic promotion place.
And they will be smarting after blowing their midweek chance by losing 2-0 at Rochdale.
My knees are knocking already. Because since winning 3-2 at St Mary's in October 2009 they have beaten us 3-2, 5-1 and 4-0 - and all at the Mem.
To make matters worse I am surrounded at work by Saints fans.
They claim they are worried. They've seen our latest results, our good run.
They think we're an accident waiting to happen.
What they HAVEN'T seen is our recent performances and the fact that we have had three shots on target in our last three games.
Saints preserve us...