The South West has never been the happiest of hunting grounds for Dale, with Exeter's antique St.James Park proving to be one of the worst. 

The South West has never been the happiest of hunting grounds for Dale, with Exeter's antique St.James Park proving to be one of the worst. Dale never win here, and today was no exception as Dale crashed 2:1 to a goal which was worthy of winning any match.

Not a bad performance at all by the Dale but yet again a visit to Devon proved fruitless.

The game started (without me present. Doh!) and Dale had made a couple of changes from last Saturday's win over Chester. Holt was dropped to the bench and replaced by Gareth Stoker, as Dale started with just the one man up front, hat trick hero Andy Morris.

The first half consisted near enough entirely of Dale being satisfied to defend. They managed that fairly successfully to the final minute of the first half when Exeter took the lead in one of the only memorable moments of the first half. A corner was crossed over and the ball was headed back to Exeter's Curran fired in a shot which got a slight deflection on the way in. Dave Bayliss was very animated after this goal, and it looked like he was blaming Andy Farrell for not picking up the initial header.

Half time saw Stoker and Bayliss, who had done little wrong, taken off, and replaced with Andy Barlow and Michael Holt. The early stages of the second half saw Dale take the game to the home side and they put on quite a bit of early pressure. Holt was lucky to avoid a booking following a blatant dive just in front of the long Exeter home terrace. As a result he got no favours off the ref for the rest of the match and at times it seemed fair game for the Exeter players.
The equaliser came after sixty five minutes when Farrell played the ball to Holt down the right hand touchline. Holty brought the ball into the box, before jinking inside the full back and shot. The Exeter keeper could only get a palm to the ball and the ball nestled into the back of the net to what was a fairly muted response from the Dale fans.

From this point on, the three points was there for the taking and Dale were unlucky on a couple of occasions when the keeper managed to block efforts with his feet. However, it was not long before Exeter were back in the lead when Fry received the ball on the right hand side of the Dale box before looping a lovely shot over Edwards head which won applause from all sides of the ground.

Dale almost equalised immediately following a great move down the left hand side by Paul Carden. He turned and twisted his way to the dead ball line before crossing and inch perfect ball to Michael Holt, who had his best game for some time, at the far side of the home goal, before scissor-kicking home a powerful shot. It was heading in but unfortunately it was blocked.

The rest of the game was played out in a typical end of season way, and the last few minutes brought no urgency from either team.
Dale: Edwards, Farrell, Bayliss (Barlow), Hill, Monington, Lydiate, Carden, Stoker (Holt), Morris, Peake, Bryson. Sub not used Hicks
 

Photo: Action Images

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