Kendal Men's Seconds 1 - 4 Rochdale Men's Seconds

Luke Robinson (left)
Kendal Men's Seconds v Rochdale Men's Seconds

Rochdale smashed through the 100 goals barrier in winning their penultimate game of the season, away at Kendal.

With the league already in the bag last week, Rochdale were looking to extend their season long unbeaten run and pass 100 goals scored in the campaign.

Going into the game sitting on 97 meant Rochdale needed just three to hit the target set by club chairman Imran Ansari at Christmas. This looked achievable as on only two previous occasions this year have they scored less.

Scott Hempsall-Jones opened the scoring for Rochdale after picking up the scraps in the Kendal D.

Kendal refused to roll over and were making a real game of it.

The first half was hard fought by both teams, although Rochdale dominated with a series of short corners. However, Rochdale just weren't getting the rub of the green and couldn't find the back of the net.

It wasn't until the stroke of half time that Hempsall-Jones scored his second of the game, and 30th of the season, to take Rochdale in at half time with a 2-0 lead.

Rochdale appeared more anxious about the 100th goal than they did about winning the league and with play swinging in Kendal's favour, Kendal pulled one back from a short corner, awarded after a minor fracas in the Rochdale D.

This fired Rochdale up and within four minutes Graham Broadley had restored Rochdale's two goal cushion and scored Rochdale's 100th goal of the season.

The tension now gone, Rochdale began to play their natural flowing game and Luke Robinson scored with a top D strike after a swift attacking move down the right hand side making it 4-1 to Rochdale and game over.

Captain Karl Wynn: "It was a nervous game for us, 100 goals is a great target for us to achieve. More important to us all is to go all season unbeaten, we would have taken 1-0 at the start of the game. We still have one more game to go and I have every confidence in this set of lads to win again. As for the Quat-Chem man-of-the-match, it can only be one choice really, Graham Broadley for grabbing that golden goal."