Dale will bounce back insists BBM
ROCHDALE were looking to take out their frustration of losing to Bristol Rovers on Saturday with a positive result against Ipswich Town on Guy Fawkes Night.
The Tractor Boys came into the game needing victory to return to the top of the table, but were facing a Dale side keen to redress the weekend’s 2-1 home defeat.
“We’re coming up against one of the top teams in League One, it’s a great chance to test ourselves against a side coming here on a high,” said Dale chief Brian Barry-Murphy.
“It will be a great challenge to see how we come back from losing on Saturday when we felt we should have won. Our players are becoming very difficult to keep down for long and they will bounce back.
“We’ll approach the game in the exact same manner we have done all season. We’ll learn from Saturday and focus on honing our defensive skills and limiting the opposition to as few attempts on goal as possible.
“Bristol had very few attempts on goal and we have managed to lose the game, wheras in previous weeks we have won against Bolton, Accrington Stanley and MK Dons, who all had more chances on goal but we managed to defend them and not give away goals.
“I’m very wary of focusing on one defensive aspect and saying ‘ah, we conceded from a setpiece, we have to eradicate that,’ because there have been loads of games where teams have had similar chances but not scored. You can’t always control when that happens.”
Rovers scored twice in the first 11 minutes of the game and though Callum Camps pulled one back just before the break and Dale dominated the second period, they were unable tosalvage the point they deserved.
At 2-0 down and with Rovers content to sit deep and pick off on the counter, Dale had to be patient – on and off the field.
BBM added: “I thought the support was brilliant and I am not trying to create a false bubble of positivity because I got the first half, we’d conceded two goals very early and it would have been very easy for everybody to be frustrated and disappointed. There were spells where we were having to be patient and draw them on to us and there was a sense of ‘let’s get forward, let’s get forward.’ The players were very conscious of that and they stuck to their part of the bargain in the second half by being really incisive and creative in their play and really trying to go through the opposition.
“The support in the second half was fantastic and you could feel it in the stadium. The players fed off that and as we’ve said before it’s a two way thing – the supporters need something to cheer on and the players feel amazing when they get backed.
It came together in the second half, the support was good and there seemed to be a lot of young people in the stadium. I’m not against any age group coming to the games, we welcome supporters of all ages – but to see so many children in the stadium was refreshing and links into our mantra as a club.
“We have a lot of young players so it was nice to see a lot of young supporters, and hopefully that will be a continuing trend.”