| There are certain things in life which are considered to be easy. Taking sweets of a young child or outsinging the home fans at Giggle Lane for example. You can add two more things to that list. The first is winning away from home, an art in which Dale seem to have perfected in the past year and a bit. And also, you can add Mark Monington scoring from corners. Teams know he is the man to watch, but they can do nothing about it! Mono for England!
Furthermore, and I know Parkin has warned us not to get carried away, but on this showing, it seems very difficult to imagine Dale not getting promoted at the end of the season. Dale have played all the teams that are fancied for promotion (with the exception of Orient) and so far we have seen nothing to be afraid of. We had Chesterfield supporters backing us last week, and now we have embarrassed another promotion contender on their own patch.
This was a very fair result, as agreed by their coach on local radio after the game. The victory could have been higher such was Dale's superiority. The chants at the end were claiming that the Dale are going up. At this moment, it's very hard to argue against that.
Dale returned to the scene of victory number one of the Steve Parkin era, and had decided to go with the same side that took a point off leaders Chesterfield earlier in the week. That meant Phil Hadland retained his place on the left hand side, and with Tony Ford on the right, giving us the 4-4-2 which has brought us so much success on the road. Cheltenham, who had won four of their five previous matches, came into the game with an unchanged side of their own.
The opening stages of the game were quite scrappy, and the home side looked a decent outfit. They were a strong side, with a lot of height in their team. This was helped by former Swansea striker Julian Alsop who towered above defender Dave Bayliss.
They looked a bit of a handful, and it looked like if Dale could pick up a second successive point, then that would be a great result. It soon transpired, that Town offered little up front. Much for his awkwardness, Allsop proved ineffective, and failed to cause any significant problems. He and Dale defender Dave Bayliss were having a right battle, and it spilled over a couple of times. Bayliss was giving as good as he got, and another referee could have come down on their antics very heavily indeed.
Indeed the closest that Cheltenham came to taking the lead, was courtesy of a Wayne Evans clearance which rocketed just wide of the upright to the disbelief of keeper Edwards. Evans even took time out after to let Edwards know that there was no need to be worried. Anything to prevent an ear bashing!
But as the half progressed, Dale grew in confidence and soon began to take control of the match, and the forced a series of corners. Of course, every time we were awarded a corner, we all expected Monington to get a goal, and just after the half hour mark, he did just that. A Tony Ford corner came over and Monington scored from a diving header to grab his fifth goal of the season.
Any thoughts of a fight back by Cheltenham soon disappeared, and as the minutes before half time ticked down, it seemed clear that lessons had been learned from Tuesday's game with Chesterfield.
Recently, we have seen Dale drop in form in the second half if they had a half time lead. Well today, Dale stepped up a gear and never looked back. Dale could have scored three or four in the second half, such were the gaps left open by Cheltenham as they pressed forward. The home side pushed up on regular occasions and Dale had three or four breakaways, and it looked like it was just a matter of time before a second goal would come, and ease the fans' nerves.
When the second goal did come, it came via the most likely of sources - Mark Monington, but it was certainly not your typical Mono goal. Dale had a throw in on the left wing, which went to Clive Platt who took the ball close to the dead ball line, with a defender giving him some very close attention. Plattini managed to whip in a super cross to Mono who was in acres of space who almost scissor kicked the ball in (use some imagination with this please!) to make it two and double Dale's lead. This goal also made Monington Dale's top scorer for the season so far in the league. Monington's delicate touch provided much hilarity on the Dale bench, when they had their very own Fantasy Football Phoenix from the Flames, as they mimicked Monington's goal.
The unthinkable almost happened later on, and Monington almst grabbed himself a first ever hat trick. New signing Christian Lee put over a header which seemed to suggest that he was in two minds whether to shoot or knock the ball across goal. The ball went straight past Steve Book, and missed Monington by a matter of inches. If he had stuck his leg out, then.........
Despite a late fightback by Cheltenham, the resutl was never really in doubt, as Edwards never had a proper save to make. Town had a shout for a penalty turned down when McCann was tackled in the box, but at that time they were asking for miracles (which would have been needed for that penalty to have been given!).
So fourteen games gone, twenty eight points and second in the league table. The Dale eyes are smiling!
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