Captain Peter Cavanagh believes Easter Monday’s win over Exeter City is a “culmination of hard work.”
Rochdale dominated the match at St James’ Park but left it late to secure an invaluable three points. In recent weeks Dale have turned out some very good performances but have failed to take maximum points, and Cav reckons the work they’ve been doing has finally come to fruition.
“It was a very important result when you look at the other results that came through after the game. I think it was a culmination of a lot of hard work that has gone on over the last six or seven weeks and I think it was warranted on the performance. Even at 1-0 down I always felt that if we got one that we could probably go on and nick it. I didn’t think we would leave it so late, but we were the side that were pushing for most of the game and created most of the chances.
“The lads have been confident anyway because the Gaffer is good at instilling that and creating that type of atmosphere, but it is always nice to feel it yourself and Monday was justification of what we’ve been trying to do.”
Saturday’s match sees a return to the Highbury Stadium for the midfielder who spent two years at the Cod Army and played a key role in the side’s promotion to the Football League last season. Fleetwood are within touching distance of the play-offs heading into the weekend’s encounter and the Dale skipper recognises their achievement: “It’s no secret that they’ve got a wealthy chairman and they’ve used them funds to bring in some experienced players. To be up and around the play-offs with five games to go on your debut in the Football League is a great achievement.”
From a Dale perspective, Cav wants to finish the season on a positive note: “We’ve done quite well against the teams that are above us or in the promotion shake up and a lot of the games we’ve got left are against the teams of that ilk. We’d like to put a marker down for next season to say this is where we are, this is what we want to achieve and to show that we’ll be challengers for next season.”
The full interview with Peter is available on DALE PLAYER now.