SOUTHEND United started 2016 with a depressing 3-0 defeat against Doncaster Rovers at Roots Hall this afternoon.

Just five days on from suffering a 4-0 reverse at home to Millwall, the Shrimpers were again heavily beaten in front of their own fans.

And it was another below par performance, lacking attack intent, which resulted in the second successive setback.

Blues rarely threatened against Darren Ferguson’s side and Doncaster wasted a promising opportunity early on when Andy Williams failed to make contact with Nathan Tyson’s left wing cross just 12 yards out.

After the wasted opportunity, there was very little action until Conor Grant fired a long range effort straight at Shrimpers goalkeeper Daniel Bentley in the 33rd minute.

In reply, Jack Payne soon saw a swerving 20 yard shot pushed to safety by Rovers goalkeeper Thorsten Stuckmann following a well worked right wing corner.

But, moments later and, with 41 minutes on the clock, Blues were forced into making an enforced change as David Worrall replaced the injured Will Atkinson in midfield.

However, just three minutes later, Rovers went in front when Nathan Tyson’s low right wing cross was missed by a sliding Adam Thompson and Williams rifled the ball into the roof of the net with a powerful left footed shot.

Williams came close to doubling the visitors’ lead when he saw a 20 yard parried away by Bentley.

But Blues soon hit back and forced three corners in quick succession before the recalled Glen Rea had a 20 yard shot pushed wide of the right post by Stuckmann.

After the break however, it was Doncaster back on top with Paul Keegan sending a long range effort against the outside of the left post before Ben Coker sliced a clearance inches wide of the opposite upright.

With the visitors continue to push forward, Luke McCullough soon had a header from Conor Grant’s left wing corner cleared off the goal-line by Ryan Leonard.

In reply, Shrimpers boss Phil Brown made his second change of the game with Gary Deegan replacing Glen Rea.

But the Shrimpers did not learn the lessons from their previous scare and, in the 54th minute, the visitors doubled their lead when another left wing corner from Grant was volleyed home by Aaron Taylor-Sinclair via the underside of the crossbar.

Things soon got even worse for the Shrimpers too, with Doncaster making it 3-0 just four minutes later as Nathan Tyson fired home a penalty.

The spot-kick came when Bentley was embarrassingly dispossessed by Tyson before Thompson brought down Williams when the striker seemed set to score.

Thompson escaped with just a yellow card but Tyson his own form of punishment as he fired the spot-kick into the bottom right hand corner of the net with Bentley diving in the opposite direction.

The shell-shocked Shrimpers replied with Noel Hunt having a close range shot saved by Stuckmann before Brown made his third change in the 70th minute with Joe Pigott coming in for David Mooney.

Blues started to see more of the ball with Coker having a 20 yard shot well saved by Stuckmann but they rarely threatened in the closing stages of another sub-standard showing.