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Report: Brighton 2 Dale 2
Report: Brighton 2 Dale 2
Sunday, 15th Aug 2010 10:03 by Col

There’s not much better than when you score the very last goal to be scored in the whole of English football.

Did we deserve the point? Not sure. In fact, it was a very difficult game to make heads or tails of. Albion were certainly the better of the two sides, and with ten men it only seemed to make them stronger, but a late flurry of chances for Dale saw the pressure finally pay thanks to a monumental goalkeeping error. So did we deserve the point? Nope, it was a point stolen.

Not that I care.

I feel almost apologetic when writing about the stadium. There’s nothing that can be said that hasn’t been said a million times over by every team who has visited the Withdean Stadium over Albion’s temporary eleven year stay at the Athletics Stadium, and its certainly not the fault of Albion who have this place whilst awaiting some brand spanking new place, but to not mention it would be a case of avoiding the obvious. A sort of white elephant in the room, given recent messageboard parlance.

It was horrible. We were treated to the sort of weather than we’d left Rochdale to avoid in the first place, and there wasn’t even a hint of a roof. Add into that, we must have been a good thirty yards at least from the pitch and it just felt like we weren’t at a football match at all. Worse than Accy, worse than Macc and something we’d turn our noses up had we visited for a pre-season game. This wasn’t what we’d chased promotion for so long for. This was the part of the coastal town that they forgot to close down.

And if that wasn’t enough to ruin any sort of atmosphere that you might expect to get at a football match, then we had a set of stewards who were clearly suffering from first game of the season officialdom, operating without any form of common sense at all. Opinions may well have been mixed as to whether Dale fans helped matters at times, but the role of any steward worth his salt should not be to go looking to create problems where no problems exist.

On the field in the distance, it was the same eleven for the third game on the trot, meaning despite his midweek goal, Anthony Elding had to make do with a spot on the bench, joined on there for the first time by City loanee Tutte.

As the seaside rain came down, we had a minute’s silence which required a good three or four minutes of introduction as Albion paid tribute to a former club employee amongst several others, which thankfully was much better observed than our own tribute to Stan Milburn last week.

Okay, report of the first half…….

…………

There we go. Did you read it? Because put simply, nothing happened in the first half. Nothing at all. It was the steady Dale display, where we hold tight, invite the opposition to come at us without every really looking in any danger whatsoever. Could of half chances for Albion but nowt to get the pulse racing, and we almost got into an attacking position on a couple of occasions but never quite enough. The half had goalless draw written all the way through it.

If pushed, there was a couple of incorrect corner decisions awarded by the linesman, and perhaps a couple of regulation saves by Lillis that were so straightforward it was offensive to call them saves. But other than that, I’d have to start writing about well taken throw ins to add any more content to the first half.

So where did this second half come from?

Within two minutes of the restart, the home side took the lead and Josh Lillis finally conceded whilst wearing Dale colours. We’ll check the history books later, but there can be few keepers who have taken 317 minutes before conceding for the club. Many have not taken 317 seconds before conceding.

A cross to the box was met by former Dale man Glenn Murray who’s header cannoned off the cross bar. Unfortunately for us, it cannoned straight back to him, and his second header was the easiest of touches to give the home side the lead, and another chunk of that £300,000 repaid. There were some saying that Murray should not have celebrated, but if a footballer can’t enjoy scoring a goal, then we may as well stop playing.

One concern I do have about this new, almost defensive style of play is our ability to come from behind with it. Its all well and good keeping it tight and retaining possession but once we’re trailing, what do we do? I tell you what we do, we send Elding on to go and grab us a penalty. And that’s exactly what Hilly did.

Elding came on, and within about ten seconds, Elding is in a heap on the floor in the penalty area. I’d love to be able to describe what went on, but like pretty much everyone else in the ground, I was watching our free kick being taken. Even the linesman who was right in front of the incident seemed to be oblivious to what went on.

Suffice to say that (hopefully) the referee saw what went on, and after the match it came out that Elding suffered a black eye in the incident, and the only issue the Brighton manager had with it was whether the ball was in play or not when the offence was committed, so it’s safe to assume that the decision was on the whole a fair one.

So with our first penalty since November of last year, Gary Jones resumed penalty duties as if they had never gone away, and our resurgent captain calmly slotted the ball to the keeper’s left hand side to get Dale back on level terms.

Now on paper, it should have been game on right now. Parity restored on the scoreboard and with an extra player, it should have been a case of taking it to the home side and going full out for the win, but our record against ten men hasn’t been brilliant with perhaps a hangover still looming from that Port Vale game where our efforts to win the game cost us.

But reality was very different, the extra man proved to be no advantage and Brighton had undoubtedly their best spell of the game from now on. They were tons better than us. Their movement was sharper, they passed the ball better and they played with more intelligence. At times, they footballed us to death.

And it was very much with the run of play when they regained the lead. A hopeful ball forward was headed clear by Craig Dawson, but only to the feet of former Bury wingman Elliott Bennett who had all the space in the world. He headed goalwards before smashing it beyond the reach of Lillis. Excellent finish by Bennett.

So was this ding dong second half about to go dong again? No, far from it, and the goal merely added to the confidence of our hosts who continued to stroke the ball around at will leaving us chasing shadows, and it took a great save by Lillis to prevent it becoming 3-1. An equaliser seemed a million miles away.

But as we approached the last five minutes of the game, we suddenly started getting chances and we showed that when we attack sides, we will continue to cause them problems with perhaps the gulf in class between what we played last season and face this year isn’t quite as big as we perceive it to be.

From offering close to nowt from an attacking point of view for the first 85 minutes, we must have had four or five great chances to score as time ran out. I know we had the extra player which was an obvious advantage, but it was things that we were doing well that was the difference, notably with Chris O’Grady in a much more threatening attacking role.

O’Grady came close himself with a chance following a Widdowson cross, and Elding had a couple of efforts which were either deflected or saved well, and from out of nowhere, we had a bit of urgency to our play, and it was causing the home side to panic. Notably the goalkeeper.

For two minutes into injury time, a free kick taken by Lillis was pumped forward, and the best description of it was that it was hopeful. It overshot our attacking line, and merited a simple catch by the former Leeds man between the Brighton sticks, whilst he went on to hold the ball for a few seconds before sending it down the other end of the field allowing the referee to call time. Game over, three points to Albion.

But no. Casper Ankergren decided to come and punch clear the ball, without a Dale player in around twenty yards of him. And in punching the ball, he gave the ball straight to Gary Jones. Now Jonah still had a fair bit of work to do, but he immediately volleyed the ball back over Askergen’s head into the vacant Albion net prompting scenes of mass jubilation on and off the pitch. It’s a great sight seeing Jonah with both fists in the air, and one that should be always cherished.

You could argue long into the night whether this was a deserved point or not, but it was very much an appreciated point away at a side that will spend the season challenging at the right end of the table. One or two questions of our own may well have been raised, but the positives continue to outweigh any negatives with our feet starting to get very much underneath the table of League One, though chants along the lines of “Staying Up” have a certain needless negativity to them.

Again, we mention the difference that Gary Jones brings to the side. His performance is one in the eye to all of his critics, and it’s like he was meant for League One. Footballers should not as a rule be able to find that extra 10-20% at 33 years of age, and the one picked out by many as a potential weak link for this season is very much our most influential player. And top scorer.

So its farewell to the Withdean from Dale supporters, and whilst very few will be sad to see its passing, our lasting memory will be of our captain, arms raised, clenching his fists in the air. Nice one Jonah.

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