Hockey: Rochdale Men's Firsts 2 - 1 City of Manchester Men's Seconds

Rochdale Men's Firsts triumphed over City of Manchester Men's Seconds

Rochdale Men's first team welcomed City of Manchester Men's second team to Oulder Hill on Saturday.

With several players back and a full squad available it was a rare opportunity to really push the new style of play.

Rochdale started well enough but could not seem to make the impact their possession demanded. This allowed City of Manchester to have some chances of their own, boasting a mix of experience and youth.

Manchester were pushing the Rochdale defence to their limits. But as they had the week before they stood firm, this was helped by the returning Andrew Borritt who led the line well. Rochdale stuck to the task and opened the scoring through Sean Carney, his third goal in three games.

A second goal was not far behind with Mark Eden and Michael Waddicor combining from a short corner to set up Barry Gumbley to lift the ball into the top right hand corner to make it 2-0 at the break.

The second half saw Rochdale suffer from a lack of fitness. This was compounded by the every energetic James Shepherd being sent off, reducing Rochdale to 10 men for 10 minutes. Rochdale were also suffering from uncharacteristically poor play in the final third and could not ram home their advantage.

Manchester were growing in confidence and managed to pull a goal back from a short corner leaving Rochdale holding on in the final moments of the match.

The game was to finish 2-1 to Rochdale.

Rochdale coach Aasim Chaudhry said: "What a great performance that was from the Rochdale midfield. I am especially pleased with Andrew Borritt, Jonathan Herreran and Danny Bowe for their heroic performances in defence."

The Flying Horse Man of the Match went to Andrew Borritt.