Hockey: Bury Mens 1sts 2 - 1 Rochdale Mens 1sts

Mark Eden (centre)

Rochdale made the short trip to Bury in their first game after the Christmas break. Rochdale started well and dominated the first 20 minutes of the game forcing Bury to defend very deep in their own half.

Despite this Rochdale were not creating any clear cut chances and were looking wasteful in front of goal. Rochdale did eventually score with Mark Eden and Dave Gowers linking up from a short corner with Gowers finishing to put Dale 1-0. This was short lived as Bury, who were lucky to be awarded a short corner, had it upgraded to a penalty flick after a Rochdale foot on the line. This made the score 1-1 at the break.

The second half saw much of the same with Rochdale still struggling to create any clear cut chances. The back four were pushing higher up the pitch trying to force the advantage with fullbacks Danny Bowe and Jonny Herron camped in the Bury half.

Some well worked short corners saw Mark Vin come close to scoreing but it was Bury that scored after a short corner goal was awarded despite the forward actually kicking it into the goal. James Shepard came close to equalising when he snapped a reverse stick shot only to see it go agonisingly wide.

The game finished 2-1 to Bury which was a very harsh result for Rochdale. Captain Michael Waddicor said: "We were guilty of not making our dominance count and just didn’t take our chances."

The man of the match was Mark Eden who was strong and steady at the back.