DOVER RUING A MIST CHANCE
APOWER failure, a blanket of fog and a 91st-minute Kieffer Moore leveller for Forest Green served up a gamut of emotions at the New Lawn.
Dogged Dover had looked to have pinched the points when diminutive striker Moses Emmanuel nodded home to put the Whites in front with 20 minutes to go. But Rovers responded from Moore’s lastgasp stab – his 10th league goal of the season on his return from a productive loan spell at Torquay United. And Rovers’ boss Mark Cooper, who celebrates his 48th birthday today was forced to lament his side’s prolificacy in front of goal and insisted the pre-match power failure, which resulted in a 3.45pm kick-off, knocked his side off course. “It was not ideal in terms of the delay and the game started with a power cut and I think that led to a damp squib in the firsthalf, “said Cooper. “We had two or three really good chances to go in front and they had one shot from 30 yards from Ricky Miller. “Second half, I have got to be honest, I couldn’t really see any off it and they had one chance in the game and scored with a free header when Elliot Frear should have blocked the cross and the smallest forward has got on the end of it. “We missed some really good chances from what I can make out in the second half and we can’t keep missing those chances and whoever plays and whatever formation, we were missing too many chances and players have got to take that on board and somehow put the ball back into the net.” In worsening conditions, players were struggling to find each other as the fog engulfed the ground, Moore saw a header cleared off the line by Dover’s Richard Orlu, but it was left to Moore to get on the end of a Shamir Mullings header back into the box from a Liam Noble corner to snatch a point at the death. Cooper added: “The linesman was saying to the referee from about 50 minutes that he couldn’t see the other side of the pitch, but obviously the referee has ignored him. “But we had to keep going and wait for it turn and we have dug a point out. And bullish Dover boss Chris Kinnear felt his side deserved a second-half penalty when Miller took a tumble in the box under a Sam Russell challenge. He claimed: “We should have had a penalty to make it 2-0 and even a couple of their players afterwards said that it was a pen, but again it wasn’t, so we just have to get on with it, but spirit to come to Forest Green with all that they are trying to achieve and what they invest in, I thought Dover did really well. “We deserved to be in front at the end. I thought are performance was pleasing, we showed great spirit. We were unlucky, but at Forest Green it’s a good result even though they’ve equalised in the last minute.”