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Rochdale vs Plymouth

	2 - 1
Date: 01/05/2001		Venue: Spotland
Attendance: 0		Referee:

Some people are on the pitch, they think it's over...well not yet it ain't. But what a fantastic night to be a Dale fan. It wasn't a classic in football terms, but it was vital to get the win tonight and we did..just.

Dale, to be honest looked tired. The amount of games in such a short space of time is beginning to show but once again the weary legs came through and battled hard for the three points, which moved us up into the play off zone.

Any thoughts that the Pilgrims had just come to make up the numbers were erased in the first five minutes. They looked a quality outfit, they passed the ball well and looked dangerous going forward.

Steve Parkin survived the manager-of-the-month jinx and made just one change to the line up that beat Mansfield on Saturday. Michael Oliver had gone down with a virus and was unfit to play. His place was taken by Phil Hadland.

The game got under way and the first ten minutes or so was very much a stalemate. Both teams enjoying good amounts of possession without really doing anything. In fact one of the best moments of the first half was the brass section of the WMG Stand. As Plymouth's keeper, Roman Larrieu laid 'poleaxed' in his area after he had made a mistake and Dale had scored (unfortunately the goal was disallowed for offside). The band played the last post!

Phil Hadland worked the line on the left and tried on a few occasions to beat his man. He did so once or twice and delivered a couple of crosses, but most of the time, they were just too deep.

The first real good effort on the Plymouth goal came in the 25th minute. Gary Jones received the ball about 25 yards and blasted a low drive towards the bottom left hand corner of the goal. Larrieu dived to his left and palmed the ball wide for a corner.

Three minutes later, that man Jones had another try, this time the ball went wide as Dale looked for the break through. Chances seemed to be coming in abundance for Dale and Tony Ford rose to direct a header from a Wayne Evans cross goalwards. Sadly his effort went wide too.

Plymouth who to be fair, soaked up the Dale pressure and kept them at arms length. Steve Parkin's men had to make do with long range attempts as the Pilgrims' defence held firm.

Huge appeals and rightly so for a penalty by Dale players and supporters for handball were waved away by referee Joslin, who it has to be said, had a very poor game.

He completely ignored a flagging assistant as Dale had a corner turned into a goalkick by Merlin the ref. His assistant signalled a corner and when the referee looked at him, the linesman flagged again and pointed to the corner. Mr. Joslin ignored him, much to the annoyance of every Dale fan.

Then the knife went in. The crowd of just over 4000 were stunned. Their cries of 'cheat' to the referee silenced as Plymouth hit a long ball down the right. The Dale players looked to be in slow motion as Michael Evans collected the ball and raced towards Taff's goal. Evans drove the ball across the goal from the right, just inside the area, about 14 yards and saw it nestle in the back of the net.
Dale didn't seem to be put off by the setback and managed a few more chances before the half time whistle through Connor and Jones. We also managed to pick up a couple of yellow cards too. Dave Flitcroft, Keith Hill and Mark Monington, all for foul's.

The second half began to quickly for the Dale players and Plymouth nearly snatched a second through Steve Guinan. A lovely pass from Michael Evans into the path of Guinan,split Rochdale's defence and put the number 21 into a terrific position to shoot on the edge of the box. His shot, luckily for Dale went wide.Dale began to put more and more pressure on the visitors and were rewarded by a Stuart Elliott own goal. He attempted to head the ball back to his keeper, but the keeper had made his mind up to come and collect it. The ball gracefully fell into the goal and Dale where level.

It didn't take long for Steve Parkin's men to take the lead. Paul Connor grabbed his tenth goal in twelve games with a wonderful left-foot volley from Clive Platt's flick on and sent the Dale supporters wild.

Then, as Dale looked to have the game comfortably in control, the referee decided to spice things up a little. He sent off Flitcroft for his second bookable offence when he went for a 50-50 ball with Phillips. Both men went in with studs raised but Flicker caught the Argyle player on the thigh and as he rolled around, the ref sent Flitcroft off.

From then on it was one way traffic. Dale camped out in their own half as Platt dropped back into the midfield. Neil Edwards, who was criticised for his display at Blackpool last week, pulled off three superb saves, one a point blank parry over the bar to not only take the man of the match award, but help Dale take all three points.

As the final whistle blew, fans poured onto the pitch and the site was magnificent. I looked down from the press box and a sea of blue and white congratulated the players on a fine victory. We know the job is not done yet and we are still hoping that come next Saturday on the south coast, we may invade the pitch there and not skulk off home.

Match Information


	Rochdale	Plymouth
Goals :	2	1
Possession :	0%	0%
Shots On Target :	0	0
Shots Off Target :	0	0
Corners :	0	0
Fouls :	0	0
Yellow Cards :	0	0
Red Cards :	0	0

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