Manager Brian Barry-Murphy reflects on Dale’s defeat at Accrington Stanley…
“I thought it was a difficult game at a difficult venue against a difficult opponent. We’ve had some great days here over the last couple of years but today just wasn’t our day,” said BBM.
“The conditions were very difficult in the first half and it took us a while to grow into it, so probably playing with the wind in the first half wasn’t a great thing for us but the second half went really well from our point of view. We started the half on the front foot and we scored a brilliant goal, and if I’m being honest, I thought we were just at the point of taking real control of the game and looking to score a second when Accrington scored a good goal from their point of view.”
Dale had taken the lead through Jimmy Keohane in 54th minute, but two goals in two minutes, from Joe Pritchard (64 minutes) and Jon Russell (66 minutes), respectively, saw the hosts come from behind to secure the three points.
“The combination of the first and second goals coming so quickly was difficult for us to process and change the feel of the game. But once we dusted ourselves down, I thought we finished the game really strongly and looked very likely to score an equaliser.
“We were on the front foot right until the end. The first half wasn’t full of goal mouth action but the second half most definitely was and, like I said, we finished really strongly. We had a good chance to score late on but we didn’t manage to do it. As we’ve stated all along, this is the very early stages of this group forming and there are going to be days when you feel as if you should have got the three points but you didn’t. We just have to swallow it today as much as we were so happy in victory last week.
“We’ve had some brilliant days here over the couple of years with all of our supporters here. Everybody was so excited at those victories, but today is Accrington’s day and we fully respect that.
“They are a very good team in the league, similar to ourselves in that they are a young team who are forming and growing into the season, so we’re hoping to follow that and continue our own progress, which we will. We won’t be distracted by disappointments like today. We’ll accept it, although we don’t want it, and we'll definitely want to put things right from Monday onwards with a real focus on a brilliant game at our stadium next Saturday.”
And BBM says there are positives from the performance to take forward.
“In terms of our structure of the team, I thought it was very good, and the spirit of the lads was excellent as it was last week, so it’s imperative that I’m not distracted from the overall performance and the attitude of the lads, which is exemplary and fills me with hope, as it did last week, for the rest of the season.”
The Boss confirmed that Paul McShane was substituted at half-time due to calf problem.
“Paul had real tightness in his calf and I think it’s important that we’re proactive in managing that. I think, as such, he should be fine moving forward but it was in the balance on whether he could continue or not, so I was keen to make that decision and a be ahead of it.”
Watch the full interview on iFollow.
Watch the full interview on iFollow.