Dale straighten
ROCHDALE produced a performance to savour as they took league leaders Scunthorpe to the cleaners at the Crown Oil Arena on Saturday.
Keith Hill advised his players to ignore the scoreline, which suggests a close contest – it wasn’t, Dale were better from start to finish and a four or five goal winning margin would not have flattered them.
The visitors scored twice in the closing ten minutes to set up the possibility of an absolute travesty of justice, but Dale closed the game out comfortably in the remaining few minutes.
“It was an amazing performance, absolutely amazing,” said Hill.
“We came off the pitch at the end and Joe Thompson said ‘we made hard work of that’ but we didn’t, we didn’t make hard work of it.
“Their first goal was fortunate for the opposition and the second goal was a free kick with arguments as to whether it was offside or not. But we shouldn’t be debating the scoreline, the performance was amazing from every single on of my players.”
Hill made five changes to the team that had started against Chesterfield four days earlier in the Checkatrade Trophy, Aaron Morley, Niall Canavan, Reuben NobleLazarus, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Samni Odelusi dropping out of the starting line-up.
Back in came Callum Camps, Joe Rafferty, Joe Thompson, Steven Davies and Oliver Rathbone.
The visitors carved out the first opening with a cleverly worked short corner routine which ended with Josh Morris shooting towards Conrad Logan’s near post, the goalkeeper diving forward to smother the ball in a busy six-yard box.
But thereafter, it was pretty much all Dale.
Ten minutes in, Harrison McGahey was denied by a terrific save from Luke Daniels. Joe Rafferty’s corner was flicked on by Thompson and brought under control by Davies, who teed up the Dale defender. McGahey struck a firm drive on target only for Daniels to fly to his right and push the ball behind.
Home supporters and the Dale bench were left scratching their heads 15 minutes in when Rafferty’s lofted ball found Ian Henderson in the area and he buried the ball past Daniels and into the net. With the assistant referee’s flag remaining down at his side, Dale were perplexed when referee Ben Toner ruled the effort out.
Former Dale man Stephen Dawson’s powerful run at goal had the home defence backpeddling but the midfielder’s aproach play was wasted when he slipped a pass to Kevin van Veen and the striker missed out on a shooting opportunity with a clumsy first touch.
But the home side continued to boss the game and were close again when Rathbone’s delivery from the left was met by Henderson on the volley but he was unable to guide his finish inside the post.
The
‘It was an amazing performance. Joe said we made hard work of it but we didn’t’
deserved breakthrough came in the 41st minute courtesy of Thompson. A probing run by Bunney took the Dale man to the byline and with Davies yelling for the ball to be pulled back, Bunney slipped a pass