West Brom 3 Doncaster 1 - match report

If life at West Brom can and will get better for Roberto Di Matteo, it surely can't for Chris Wood.

The 17-year-old boy-giant came off the bench last night to seal his team's fifth victory in an unbeaten seven-game start that once more took Albion top of the Championship.

How he did it will stay with him for the rest of his life - a 25-yard shot dispatched to the top-right hand corner of Doncaster keeper Neil Sullivan's net with shuddering, Regis-like power.

It was the powerful New Zealander's first goal for the club, the goal he perhaps needed to confirm a hugely-promising impact on English football.

There is too much ahead for the young man to say with certainty that there will be plenty more from where that came from but, for Albion fans, there is justified excitement that the club is about to end its long, long search for a goalscoring star reared from within, even if he was recruited from overseas.

Wood's spectacular 85th-minute strike settled a patchy contest which was enough to keep Albion ahead of Middlesbrough and waiting on Newcastle's result at Blackpool tonight to see if they will venture to the Riverside for Saturday's showdown with Gareth Southgate's team still leading the table.

Unusually, the three Premier League clubs have got off to flying starts despite the morale-sapping effects of being carried out of the top flight by a relentless wave of defeats; Albion, Boro and Newcastle are locked in a staring contest in which no-one has so far blinked.

But Di Matteo is taking his team's advance towards pole position in arguably Europe's most ferocious promotion race in a stride of cool detachment.

He celebrated three points, the two Jonas Olsson set-piece goals - which got them out of the early difficulty of conceding - and Wood's wonder strike.

But not much else.

"There was still plenty of things we did not do which we wanted to do," he said, confirming this remains very much a work in progress even as the points are being collected at such a healthy rate.

It is intriguing to ponder which Albion side of recent vintage would come out on top - Tony Mowbray's or the transitional version Di Matteo is shaping.

But many Baggies fans might argue that the greater pragmatism the Italian has coaxed into the current side would win the day even in the face of some of the more extravagant flair of his predecessor's best efforts.

Albion started this match with 20 minutes of the type of football to which The Hawthorns has become accustomed in recent years; indeed, it even came with a moment of vulnerability which saw Doncaster take a seventh-minute lead from their first real attack.

Then, after quickly pulling level with Olsson's first goal, the team mysteriously lost its way, became disjointed and anxious before re-asserting sufficient control after the interval to make the critical scores which ensured they are - once again - this division's top scorers. But crucially, and in a marked difference to the previous regime, they did not concede silly goals when the game was not in their control and while the Baggies may not yet be wholly convincing, they have developed a happy knack of winning while they search for a consistency demanded by Di Matteo.

He will doubtless have his gripes about the Doncaster goal but, in truth, it served to underscore his pre-match warning about this unassuming team's ability to put together their own version of attractive and penetrating attacking football. Albion were undone by a lovely cushioned pass by Waide Fairhurst as John Oster's cross arched into the area and which took partner Billy Sharp into space. He returned a precise, low service across the face of Scott Carson's six-yard line and Fairhurst easily swept home the opportunity.

Going a goal behind was only part of Albion's burden at this moment. Having opened the match with some delightful touch passing which revealed his growing confidence, Marek Cech was unable to re-start because of a twisted ankle.

A shame this because Cech also suggested he was developing a wavelength with left-back Joe Mattock which both players clearly enjoy. An understanding that was not quite so convincing when substitute Jerome Thomas took the chance to make his first impression at The Hawthorns.

The winger went on to offer an erratic performance, not without promise but lacking a sufficient quota of final ball deliveries to claim a total success.

Still, early days and there is no question there will be a place for his direct running when Albion have got teams under the cosh as Doncaster then were, culminating in Olsson's first headed goal in the 20th minute, direct from a Graham Dorrans corner. Olsson would be one of two key figures in this victory, having ensured that Albion's resistance remained focused even as the team lost its way going forward in the face of an impressive spell of control from a Rovers side who might have regained the lead but for the long-legged defender's 30th-minute block on a Martin Woods effort.

The other vital contribution came from Youssouf Mulumbu. Throughout the middle section of the match, it was the holding midfielder who never stopped attending to his dual role of breaking up Doncaster's attacking forays and launching Albion forward.

The clearly-promising Dorrans had also summed up his team's struggle with some wayward deliveries but, in the 65th minute, he dropped a perfect free-kick into the path of Olsson who again was too much for Doncaster's defence to handle.

The Baggies, such patsies from opposition set-pieces under Mowbray, were now winning from two of their own, a reversal of fortune which passes its own comment on the difference between managers past and present. But they still needed a let-off from central defender Adam Lockwood, who missed a glaring chance with 15 minutes remaining as he failed to connect properly with a Woods free-kick.

It is possible that Wood, who had by then replaced Chris Brunt, was guilty in allowing Lockwood that opportunity but any recriminations were stifled with five minutes left when his thunderbolt flew past Sullivan.

The veteran keeper has been around long enough to have suffered from the deeds of some great strikers in his career - but I'll wager none of them ever sent a better shot beyond his grasp than the one with which Wood finally sealed victory last night.