| Dale produced a fine performance but ultimately ended up second best. Dale lost 6-1 with Rovers' goals coming from a huge deflection, three penalties amongst others.
The game began with a very large number of Dale fans making the journey to Ewood Park, so much so that they were struggling to fit the 1500 or so who travelled in the enclosure we were given. Steve Parkin opted to continue with the system of playing Clive Platt as a solitary striker. He was pretty much forced into this by the continually unfit Graham Lancashire being ruled out yet again, and Tony Ellis who was suspended for this game (but opted to watch it from the away end). So depleted was the Dale forward line, that Dale were forced to stick a YTS striker on the bench, who didn't even start for the reserves last week.
The first half was pretty much an even affair, but Dale had the majority of the chances, albeit most of them half chances. most of the play was with Dale in the Rovers half, with the home side having to attack on the break.
Rovers took the lead when Irish International Damien Duff went on a run, with Gary Jones tracking him back. With new Rovers signing Diawara offering options to his left, this gave Duff the room to shoot. His shot hit Dave Bayliss on the backside, and as a result was deflected to the opposite side to what it was intended, giving Neil Edwards no chance to give Rovers a fortuitous lead.
However, if you thought this would make the Dale players' heads drop, you would be very much mistaken, and they carried on the match in a thoroughly professional manner. And it wouldn't be long before Dale were back on level terms.
A cross over from the left hand side was nudged over the keeper by Clive Platt (not too dissimilar to the one he scored at Stenhousemuir in pre-season) which put Dale back on level pegging. The equaliser was very much deserved and justice for the good play shown by Dale during this half.
With time running out in the first half, Rovers had a goal by new signing Diaward rightly disallowed for offside, as he tapped it home at the back post. However, the turning point of the entire match came in injury time of the first half. With Rovers on the attack, full back Lee Todd seemed to tackle the Blackburn forward Jansen about a yard outside of the box. The linesman on the far side of the pitch immediately indicated a penalty. Now the incident looked to be at least a yard outside of the box, but the referee went with the decision of the far sided linesman, and Blackburn's England U-21 international David Dunn coolly slotted the ball to the left of keeper Neil Edwards.
Half time came and went just as a Rovers player made an over the top challenge, which was the footballing equivalent of being saved by the bell.
The first fifteen minutes of the second half saw the contest over, with again the referee making the crucial decisions for Rovers. Within minutes of the restart, Dave Bayliss tangled with Rovers striker Jansen. Of Course, as he got anywhere near the box, he fell to the floor (is that what £4 million pays for?), and referee Willie Burns gave the home side another penalty, which was again scored by David Dunn to put the home side in an uncatchable 3-1 lead.
Not long after the score was 4-1 when former Arsenal striker Kaba Diawara beat Keith Hill in a 50-50 before racing clear and slotting the ball past Neil Edwards to effectively finish the game off.
With the attention starting to drift away from the referee, he decided to award Rovers yet another penalty. This was perhaps the clearest of the three, but it was again a case of the Rovers players going down very easily inside the box. This gave David Dunn the opportunity to score a hat trick of penalties which he duly olbiged to give Blackburn a 5-1 lead.
Blackburn made it six with time running out, but by then all dreams of some super comeback had even surpassed the most optimistic of supporters.
The scoreline really, really flattered the home side, so much so that some Rovers supporters apologised after the match. It all came down to a hugely deflected goal, and three penalties, at least one of which should never have been given, which the Rovers fans agreed with after.
The one consolation was the Dale support tonight. It was absolutely outstanding at the end of the match, so much so that you would have thought that we were the victors. Led by the obese drummer at the front, the closing stages of the match consisted of "Steve Parkin's Barmy Army" and other Dale chants. Perhaps if they had sung that loudly earlier in the match, who knows what might have happened?
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