Manager Brian Barry-Murphy reflects on Dale’s 2-2 draw with Sunderland at the Crown Oil Arena…
“I thought it was a brilliant game – I thought it we were exceptional in the first half,” he said in his post-match interview.
“It felt like a rip-roaring affair which is hard to say when there are no supporters in, because you can’t get a real flow of the game. But I thought we were brilliant and I thought we could have scored any amount of goals in the first half.
“We were a dominant force, so to come back both times when they [the Sunderland goals] were significant blows, because we didn’t see them coming, was testament to the lads’ character.
“I thought our attacking play was brilliant. We were very creative and courageous, and we committed multiple numbers forward into the box and we got our just rewards for that. I thought we could have scored a lot of goals. We put so much into the first half that it was a tough second half for us, but we again defended again and put everything on the line to protect our goal. I think the overall result was the least we deserved.
“With the shape of the first half, we were very disappointed to be going in at 2-2. We thought that we could have and should have been in front, so in the second half they are entitled to put pressure on us and bring on big reinforcements from the bench. We brought on our own players to protect the lads as much as possible in terms of our physicality and because we put so much into the game, we looked very tired towards the end, but I just see that as an amazing positive because our guys have put absolutely everything into every day for the Club and it has given our supporters, hopefully, something to be very proud of.”
BBM continued: “We spoke on Saturday about our commitment to attack and attack in numbers and every time we were looking at numbers in the box tonight it was flooded with our players, so that gives our lads real belief in what we’re doing.
“It takes a lot of courage to play that way against a team who are supposedly much bigger than us in the division, so to go toe-to-toe with them was testament to our lads.
“It has been a great start to the season for us. I speak about detaching myself from the result and just focusing on the performances and over a long a period of time I feel every one of us, and I include myself in that, are improving. That’s very special and is the whole reason we do the job. We as feel though we’re doing everybody proud at the moment and we’ll continue that irrespective of how the results go over the next few weeks.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.