Gillingham 3 Bristol Rovers 2

TWO goals in the last five minutes saw Gillingham snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Bristol Rovers at Priestfield on Saturday.

Iffy Onuora, in charge for his ninth game since taking over temporarily, played with four strikers after going 2-1 down and the gamble paid off.

He said: "It was testament to our spirit that we have that we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves after conceding early in the second half.

"We probably played our best spell when we were 2-1 down. I didn’t want to just leave it, I wanted to be pro-active and I made sure we got out subs on and made use of the attacking players that we have at our disposal."

The Gills opened the scoring on 19 minutes when Aaron Brown's free-kick, given after a foul on Andrew Crofts, went through the wall and beat keeper Steve Phillips low down to his right.

Rovers levelled in the 26th minute with a free-kick of their own. Simon King brought down Craig Disley on the edge of the penalty area and Ricky Lambert's set-piece was deflected twice to give Simon Royce no chance.

The visitors were ahead within a minute of the restart when David Pipe ghosted into the area and sent a thunderous half-volley into Royce's top corner.

The home side looked to be heading for defeat until substitute David Graham was on hand to make it 2-2 after being found by Mark Bentley's chip.

And the late show was complete when the in-form Chris Dickson latched onto a ball by Graham and lashed the ball past Phillips from the edge of the area.

After the game, Gillingham were drawn away to Barnet in the FA Cup first round.

Gillingham: Royce, Jupp (Graham 63), Sodje, Cox, King (Cogan 86), Southall, Bentley, Crofts (Mulligan 78), Brown, Dickson, Facey.

Subs Not Used: Stillie, Lomas.

Attendance: 5,333.