Alex Bruce eyes league upturn as Rotherham United show their true worth in cup
"I was pleased with the whole level of performance."
Alex Bruce has called on his players to use this afternoon's FA Cup success to fire a climb up the League Two table when Rotherham United return to action after the international break.
The boss admired what he saw from his depleted side as the Millers put a ten-match winless streak behind them to comfortably see off opposition from the division above in a first-round tie.
Despite being without 10 first-teamers, Rotherham cruised to a 2-0 triumph over Bromley in south-east London and could have won by a greater margin.
"I was absolutely delighted with the players today," he said. "We were down to the bare bones. We had a lot of injuries, a lot of suspensions, a little bit of illness.
"The lads who turned up were excellent. It's been a tough few weeks. A lot of things haven't gone our way in terms of not having that little bit of luck, referees' decisions, silly mistakes, which we've all spoken about.
"But one thing that I will say is, I've always felt as if that display was just around the corner because I see these players every day. I'm not getting carried away with one good performance. We've got to use that now as a catalyst. We've set the standard."
The visitors took the lead close to half-time with a header from Sonny Aljofree and extended their advantage through Tom Bradshaw's run and finish after the interval.
In the second half, Bradshaw and George Sebine hit the woodwork, Aaron Nemane was kept off the scoresheet only by a fine save and Klaidi Lolos came close to opening his Millers account.
Rotherham have a free Saturday next weekend and then head to Grimsby Town on November 21. They are in 22nd spot in the fourth tier after a miserable October, but their head coach senses better things ahead.
They should be strengthened for the Mariners clash by the return of top scorer Paul Mullin, centre-half Dominic Iorfa and attacker Marvin Kaleta who missed out against the Ravens through illness, a ban and injury respectively.
"I've said in many interviews, we have shown glimpses of what we're capable of, but we've not done it over 90 minutes in games," Bruce said. "We've done it in certain parts of games, then we've had a sending-off or two sendings-off or an injury or something else which has disrupted us.
"Today, I was pleased with the whole level of performance. We managed the game really well. I thought we had complete control in the second half. We kept the ball.
"Like I've said for many weeks, I firmly belief that this group of players can go on a run. Hopefully, we can kick on from here."