JOHN Coleman believes his side have not been rewarded for their efforts over the last three games and is hoping that all changes at Doncaster Rovers tonight.

Accrington Stanley have not won since hammering Bristol Rovers 6-1 on February 2 – on a night Dion Charles scored a first league hat-trick.

The Reds have failed to win any of their three games since and have slipped to ninth place in League One – although they did impress in Sunday’s 2-2 draw at leaders Lincoln City.

So Coleman is looking for an upturn in fortune, and a bit of luck, against their fellow promotion-chasers at the Keepmoat Stadium

“It’s nice to see people rewarded for their effort and good play and we just haven’t had those rewards at the moment, hopefully they are not too far off coming to fruition,” Coleman told the club website.

“Football takes twists and turns, you get into ruts and you get onto great runs but you do need luck ...a penalty, a disallowed goal against you, just little things.

“At this moment they are not happening for us, they are happening against us, penalties, sendings off, and non-sendings off and non-penalties.

“I think it shows great character of the lads who are playing through that, they are not getting the reward for what their efforts are producing and still having the enthusiasm and the passion to keep going and keep believing what is right and the players should be credited for that.

“If you are playing poorly and nicking wins you are not going to carry on, it can’t go on forever, and likewise if you are playing well and not winning eventually your luck will turn or normal order will generally turn.

“We have got to keep believing that the way we are playing is going to be enough.”

He added: “We know our concentration levels have to improve, as there are times you dominate games and go to sleep, just one or two individual errors.

“We need to fine tune the marking and how we are going to defend and give people clearer roles and responsibilities and make sure they are adhered to.

“Everyone has to take ownership of that, so everyone makes sure it’s adhered to so you have 11 policemen out there.”

Coleman wants to use the performance against Lincoln City – a match he believes his side could have won – as a yardstick for the remainder of the season but knows it will be tough against a fifth-placed Doncaster side who were beaten 4-1 at Sunderland on Saturday.

“We are expecting them to come out of the traps and we have to be ready for that and we have to match what they do and at times better what they do,” added the Reds boss.

“We went to Lincoln to win the game, you can say we were bullish with that, but we backed it up with our play.

“We more than competed against Lincoln which is the benchmark as the top team in the league at the moment. If we can do it against them we can do it against anybody but Doncaster will pose a completely different threat to Lincoln.”

Sean McConville sits out the third of his four-game ban while Joe Pritchard has a hamstring injury and is expected back in training at the end of the week.

Paul Smyth, Tariq Uwakwe and Adam Phillips have slight knocks which will be monitored.