An injury hit Dale side saw vital home points lost for the second successive home game as Rotherham sneaked a 1-0 win at Spotland. Jason White got the winner for the Millers, and they managed to hold on to secure their win

Dale crashed to their first home defeat since almost four months in an ill tempered match at Spotland. Dale's second biggest crowd of the season turned up with just under a thousand making the short journey up from South Yorkshire to see the Roses derby clash. It was a close run thing with Dale missing out on several opportunities in the closing minutes.

It didn't begin well with bad news on the injury front. Graham Lancashire failed a late fitness test, and Jason Peake was forced to sit out the match after coming down with a bout of flu. This meant that Dale went into the game with the entire spine of the side missing with Edwards and Monington already ruled out. As if playing the league leaders wasn't difficult enough.

The game started with both sides well up for this encounter. Dale were kicking towards the WMG stand in the first half, and Dale had the advantage in the opening minutes, with the early stages taking place in the Rotherham half. In fact it was six or seven minutes before the visitors got anywhere near the Dale goal.

Rotherham soon set their stall out for the match, and it was clear why they are doing so well this season. They looked a lot better than they were when they lost at Milmoor back in September. They were a well organised side, who prefer the more direct approach to football. In fact, it was straight out of the John Beck book of tactics. Added to that they were very physical in their challenges. Almost every attempted included a push or a shove without exception, to which the referee did nothing about. Referee Laws has been around for a long time. Perhaps on this performance, he should consider retirement because he was absolutely dreadful. He gave the Dale players no protection whatsoever from these over the top challenges. Indeed, some Dale players tried giving it back knowing that the referee was doing nothing about these fouls. Hill was guilty on more than one occasion of giving it back.

The rest of the first half continued in this niggly way, with the referee allowing the shoves to dominate. Dale had to try their hardest to keep up with the visitors. To be fair to the visitors, they were very sharp getting bodies in front of everything, and not allowing the Dale players any time at all on the ball. They were very quick indeed over the first two or three yards. Dale's cause wasn't helped when Tony Ellis was carried off with a serious leg injury midway through the first half, prompting the arrival of Andy Morris as substitute.

With just five minutes to go in the first half, the Millers had their first attempt on the Dale goal, but a weak shot failed to trouble Gibson. Seconds later, however, they spurned a glorious opportunity to take the lead. Paul Warne had broke through the Dale offside trap, chased mercilessly by Evans. Evans managed to catch him and put some pressure on him, so Warne laid the ball off to Jason White who had looked dangerous up till this point. With the ball at his feet, he had the simple task of just putting it away but he put it a good foot wide of the post. This was a major let off for Dale.

The second half saw continued in the much the same vein as the first half. Scrappy play, with the ball spending a lot of the time up in the clouds. Some of the Dale players were struggling in this sort of game, with the two wide men, Ford and Bettney the two obvious cases. In the middle Gary Jones was superb and stood out as Dale's class player today. The front two of Platt and Morris did their best, but failed to trouble Pollitt in the home goal.

With about half an hour to go, the unthinkable happened and the visitors took the lead. A cross came over from the right wing, and although the first attempt was dealt with, the second was converted to send the visiting hordes mental.

After that Dale stepped up a gear and took the game to the opposition, and can count themselves very unlucky not to have snatched at least an equaliser in the remaining minutes. The goal sparked Chris Bettney into action who at last seemed to get the beating of the full back. He started causing all sorts of problems, and at times it looked like a matter of time before Dale equalised.

Tony Ford came very close to scoring. With the ball bouncing around the six yard box pinball style, the ball rested and in came Fordy. Perhaps he showed a lack of experience by trying to go round the ball to hit it with his favoured right foot rather than poke it home with his left. By the time he got to it, he snatched his shot which landed somewhere in the middle of Sandy Lane.

With time running out, Dale had a couple more chances to snatch something out of this game. Andy Morris had a golden opportunity to put the ball in the back of the net, but the cross nutmegged him passing straight through his legs and out of play. All he needed was a touch on it to score.

Seconds later Wayne Evans came very close to score. He broke into the box, and fired his effort past the far post with Morris and a team mate waiting by it. Perhaps a cross would have been a better option in hindsight.

The fourth official signalled there would be four minutes of injury time to be played (just as he did back at Milmoor). Most of this was the responsibility of keeper Pollitt who time wasted at any given opportunity. Indeed he did his best to waste most of the injury time as well. Dale had a couple of corners in added time, but couldn't do anything with it.

The final whistle saw the Dale players heads dropping just as they were on the terrace. You couldn't fault any of them for effort, especially given the patched up side that was fielded. While the Rotherham players went to celebrate with their fans, Leo Fortune West made a beeline for the Sandy Lane end, making gestures towards those at the left hand side of the terrace, continuing to do so for some time. I wouldn't be surprised if the big striker landed himself in trouble with this outburst as it was on the whole unprovoked. Reports suggest he takes a lot of abuse from opposition fans about his sexuality, though this hadn't happened today.

Photo: Action Images

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