Rochdale came back from the very long trip South to Dagenham with absolutely nothing as a very poor performance ended with the home side taking the game 3-2.

Dale came from a goal behind to lead 2-1 at the break thanks to goals from former buckets Tom Kennedy and Nicky Adams but a comedy of errors in the second half saw us throw it away.

As a footballing side, Dagenham weren’t better than Rochdale but they managed to take advantage of schoolboy defending and poor finishing coming away with the spoils and leaving themselves in 5th place in the league and us 10th.

I raised question marks over the team selection upon hearing it in the pub before the match and couldn’t quite understand why Hill had opted for Clark Keltie ahead of Ciaran Toner in midfield and Joe Thompson ahead of Adam Rundle, last weeks man of the match. The full lineup was: Fielding, Ramsden, Kennedy, McArdle, Stanton, Thompson, Adams, Keltie, Jones, Buckley and Le Fondre. On the bench were Wiseman, Toner, Rundle, Dagnall and McEvilly.

To be fair, Dale started off the better side and after some good work by the 48th best youngster in the world, Will Buckley, Dale should have gone ahead after he set up Joey Thompson but Joey smashed the ball wide when he should have hit the target.

Shortly after that, Frankie Fielding made an excellent stop from a Saunders pile driver at the expense of a corner but from that corner the home side took the lead. I wasn’t paying attention as to who should have been marking Arber but it certainly wasn’t good enough marking as the big defender was free to head past the helpless Fielding to make it 1-0. Another example of the poor defending and sloppy goals we keep conceding.

Just two minutes later and the home side thought they’d made it 2-0 when Benson headed past Fielding as well but the referee had spotted a foul on Stanton, as we did, and the goal was ruled out.

Dale got back into the game on 16 minutes when Will Buckley went on another tricky run, beating a defender before setting up Gary Jones who was about to let rip from distance before being pulled back by a defender. A freekick was given and just as it looked like Nicky Adams was going to have a crack, Tom Kennedy stepped up and curled it beautifully into the left hand corner to make it 1-1. It was a quite superb strike to make his second goal of the season. “Tom Kennedy, he’s not a bucket anymore!” was the song coming from the away end!

There was a slightly modified version of the song just four minutes later as well although this time is was Nicky Adams who was no longer a bucket as he finished off a lovely move that saw Buckley thread a fantastic pass through to Thompson who crossed for Le Fondre who then found Adams who finished from close range! A great turnaround from Dale who were seemingly in control now.

The second half put an end to that thought though. Dale were simply awful in the second half and it was very unpleasant to watch.

Right from the whistle Dale were poor and Daggers looked to take advantage. Fielding had to make two good saves to prevent Strevens and then a Tom Kennedy back header from going in.

That said, Dale did create chances as well. Gary Jones smashed a low shot against the post when it looked like it was heading in.

Nicky Adams was forced off injured following two very reckless and poorly times challenges either side of half time and Lee McEvilly came on as Will Buckley dropped back onto the wing.

The substitute McEvilly set up Buckley whose shot looked like it was sailing into the net before taking a deflection off a Dagenham defender.

With about 20 minutes to go though, Dagenham were level thanks to some poor defending. Dale failed to clear a throw in and the ball fell to Matty Ritchie who volleyed past Fielding and the ball went in off the post.

Chris Dagnall replaced Adam Le Fondre as Dale looked to change things around but it didn’t really have the desired effect.

Joe Thompson fired just over just before the home side went down the other end and showed up our defence again as they once again failed to clear the danger and Benson hit an air shot but following up was Southam who was pretty much left with the ball all wrapped up with a bow on it and Stanton and McArdle waiting there with gift cards, such was the ease of the goal. Southam proceeded to accept his pressie and smashed the ball past a helpless Frankie Fielding from about 6 yards to make it 3-2! A 2-1 lead completely thrown away.

At this point, Adam Rundle came on for Joe Thompson who had worked hard with little end product.

Another fantastic run from Buckley ended up with him laying the ball back to McEvilly from the touchline and all McEvilly had to do was finish it but Tony Roberts got down well to save although McEvilly still should have done better.

The last action of the game saw Will Buckley hit in the face by Sam Saunders who was shown a straight red card for his efforts but by this time it was far too late to make the most of the numerical advantage.

The game finished 3-2 to Dagenham and the Dale fans left the ground very frustrated and quite understandably so!

Player Ratings:

Frank Fielding – 7 (No chance with any of the goals but pulled off some very good saves)
Simon Ramsden – 5 (Beaten at will by their left winger but put a couple of decent balls in)
Tom Kennedy – 5 (Superb freekick aside, he was very much off form and got beat too often and gave away possession too easily)
Nathan Stanton – 5 (Not quite as bad as the rest of the defence but even he looked off form. Beaten a fair few times)
Rory McArdle – 4 (His worst performance for some time, his heading was poor, his concentration was lacking and the Dagenham attack went through him too easily all game)
Joe Thompson – 6 (A lot of effort but little end product)
Nicky Adams – 7 (Impressive debut that was capped off with a goal)
Clark Keltie – 5 (Not bad in the first half but was completely anonymous in the second half allowing Dagenham to break through the centre)
Gary Jones – 6 (Doesn’t get forward enough when playing with Keltie but worked very hard as usual and was unlucky not to score)
Will Buckley – 7 (My MOM for us, looked dangerous every time he got the ball)
Adam Le Fondre – 5 (Did very little unfortunately against a very big defence)

Lee McEvilly – 6 (Ran his heart out and won a couple of flick ons which we hadn’t done in the first half but missed a glorious chance late on to equalize)
Chris Dagnall – 6 (Tried to run with the ball and create but it didn’t seem to fall for him)
Adam Rundle – 6 (Not on long enough to have an impact and should have started for me)

Photo: Action Images

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