Challenge is now to stay top – Vale boss
DAG & RED ........2 PORT VALE ........3
hoping we can deal with it but only time will tell if I am right.”
Pope gave the Valiants the perfect start on four minutes by heading in from close range – his 23rd goal in all competitions this term – and five minutes later MyrieWilliams steamed through for the visitors’ second.
Williams converted a penalty on 18 minutes after being brought down by Liam Chilvers before Dodds netted his seventh league goal of the season.
Doe nodded home a late goal for the visitors but it was scant consolation for assistant manager Wayne Burnett.
“We got very close to getting something out of that game but you can’t give a team like Port Vale a twogoal advantage and that’s what we did,” he said.
“We gave them two goals early on, we managed to get back in it with a penalty that I wasn’t sure was a penalty but we’ll take it but then we gift them another goal and it’s game over.
“In fairness their third goal was a terrific finish but defensively we weren’t great, we made errors and you can’t afford to make errors – not at this level or any level.
“I felt in the second half we were better offensively, I thought we created a few more chances and we managed to get a goal back – we weren’t great but we were better.”