Slow climb from
ROCHDALE picked up a point in their bid to put some breathing space between themselves and the League One drop zone as they shared four goals with visitors Gillingham.
It was a difficult game to analyse for both management teams – Steve Evans felt it two points dropped while Brian Barry-Murphy’s men were unable to hold onto a first-half lead long enough to establish control and then conceded from two setpieces.
Throw in a mind-boggling display from match official Paul Marsden – who was poor for both teams – and on balance a point apiece was probably just about a fair result all round.
BBM was still without Callum Camps, as expected, but his omission aside, the Dale squad had as strong a look about it as witnessed in recent months.
There was just one change to the starting line-up with new arrival Tyler Smith starting ahead of Calvin Andrew, who was also sidelined. The bench included goalkeeper Josh Lillis, who came back in from the cold at Wycombe a week earlier in light of the injury to Robert Sanchez. Joining Lillis among the subs were such strong options as Jim McNulty, Ollie Rathbone, Matt Done, Aaron Morley, Aaron Wilbraham and Fabio Tavares – a far cry from the all-youth replacements BBM had been forced to name just a few weeks earlier.
There were a couple of promising passing moves at pace from Dale in the opening 10 minutes, but by the 25-minute mark neither side had posed any kind of threat in the opposition’s penalty area.
John Akinde’s closerange turn and shot, when gathering a long throw into the Dale box, was the first effort on target but posed little problem for Jay Lynch and when Dale moved the ball forward in the very next phase of play, they earned a penalty to spark the game into life.
Jimmy Ryan, who had pulled the strings in midfield better than anyone up to that point, played a sumptuous ball out to Rhys Norrington-Davies on the left. The full-back was in acres of space, Gills goalkeeper Jack Bonham racing off his line to close him down. NorringtonDavies won the race to the ball, lofting it above the keeper who clattered into the Dale man and left referee Marsden with little option but to award the spot kick. Ian Henderson duly obliged, sending Bonham the wrong way.
Dale’s lead was quickly wiped out within three minutes.
Oliver Lee floated a free-kick from the edge of the area which took a nick off a Dale defender and flew narrowly wide. But when Lee took the resulting corner, he sent a fine delivery into the path of Jordan Roberts’ run at goal, the Gills man heading home from six yards – a disappointing one to concede from a defensive point of view.
Lynch punched clear a lofted Lee cross which threatened to sneak under his crossbar while Smith, set up by Henderson, couldn’t adjust his feet quickly enough to get a shot away before the ball was cleared off his toes.
Jimmy Keohane had a great chance to send Dale in ahead at the interval, but when NorringtonDavies’ pass along the face of the area found him unmarked, he got his