The Rochdale Supporters team
kicked off their season with a tough trip to
Peterborough. The team lined up with Collucio in goal,
Finn, Hindle, Milnes and Harwood across the back 4. The
midfield started with Ratcliffe, Higginbotham, P Veevers
and Lloyd and the strikers were M Woodall and Flitcroft.
Optimism for a good result later on in the afternoon was
obviously high as Dale took a large squad down leaving
the manager with an extra 5 options on the bench.
The game kicked off in boiling heat and Dale nearly took
an early advantage. The first half was fairly even with
the ball over the top often catching out the Dale
defence but neither attack could make anything of their
chances.
The deadlock was eventually broken in the second half
when Peterborough took the lead against the run of play.
The boss' half time team talk warned the players against
getting hit with the sucker punch and that's exactly
what happened. A cross came in from the right and was
headed home to give Peterborough a 1-0 lead.
Dale fought back though and it wasn't long before they
were on level terms. A free kick for Rochdale was
awarded outside the box. Whilst the Peterborough
goalkeeper was busy setting up his wall the referee gave
the alert Higginbotham permission to take a quick free
kick and he planted it into the far corner of the net to
the disbelief of the Peterborough team.
Soon after Rochdale had taken the lead. A clever through
ball was chased down by Mark Woodall and as he skipped
past the keeper he grabbed hold of the strikers foot and
brought him tumbling to the ground. Craig Milnes
(Pictured left) confidently finished off
the spot kick putting it to the keepers right.
Dale then had several chances to
make it 3-1 but they couldn't take advantage of any of
them and it came back to haunt them as in the last
minute a bouncing ball to the right of the Rochdale
penalty box was superbly struck into the top corner of
the goal by the outside boot of the Peterborough
striker. You could tell by the celebrations of his team
that they were lucky to get a point and the lad won't
hit another one like that for a long time.
Overall you have to say it was probably 2 points dropped
but in the boiling heat and for the first game of the
season it was a long way from being a bad performance.
Dale now need to focus their efforts into getting 3
points from the visit of Chester this coming Saturday.
|
Squad |
|
GK - Jon Coluccio |
|
RB - Chris
Finn |
|
LB - Jan
Harwood |
|
CB - Craig
Milnes |
|
CB - Kenny
Hindle |
|
RM - Liam
Ratcliffe |
|
LM -
Luke Lloyd |
|
CM -
Ryan Higginbotham |
|
CM - Paul
Veevers |
|
F - Mark
Woodall |
|
F - Rob
Flitcroft |
|
Substitutes |
|
David Veevers |
|
Jon Hudson |
|
David Healy |
|
Craig |
|
AN Other |
