Win is the perfect tonic after Hill’s toughest week

Win is the perfect tonic after Hill’s toughest week

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Grimsby Town 1 (Logan 18)
Rochdale 2 (Le Fondre 12, Murray 59)

Rochdale manager Keith Hill has cut the figure of an angry man this week after he heard what he believed to be harsh comments about his managerial regime following consecutive defeats against rivals Bury. The team answered its critics in the perfect manner, by weathering a first half onslaught by Grimsby and then comfortably securing victory in the second. As everyone knows, a week is a long time in football.

Hill said: “To be honest I was sick of some comments made this week towards me, Dave [Flitcroft] and the lads. We work every hour of every day to try and make Rochdale a better team. Today was a great way to answer the critics and those who have questioned our endeavour.” Those were the words of a man who has suffered his worst week in management, with two poor performances against the local rivals and a squad that seems to contain more injured players than it does fit ones.

Hill’s mettle has been put through a test this week and based on this performance his team, his management staff and the man himself have stared adversity in the eye and fought it head on. After a couple of false dawns maybe this will be the result that kick starts Rochdale’s season.

The signs were all there; goals from both the strikers, endeavour from both the wingers, second half solidity in defence, and a display from Rochdale captain Gary Jones that spoke volumes in saying how much the players are still right behind their manager.

There are two sides to every tale and Grimsby certainly played their part in this one but the home side will take no joy in the fact that their football, especially in the first half, would have been very pleasing on the eye for the neutral. The fans want performances to be backed up by results and when Rochdale caught Grimsby off the pace in the second half and then locked and bolted the back door the result was never going to come and the natives grew distinctly restless.

The Grimsby team’s display can be summed by the performance of one of its parts. Manchester City right back Shaleum Logan is on loan at Blundell Park and the class that has seen him make two first team appearances for the Premiership outfit in the Carling Cup this season shone through in the first half but, like his team, he was quiet in the second as Rochdale nullified the Grimsby threat, enabling them to create a threat of their own.

But all this was still to come. First Logan showed his pedigree by scoring a superb debut goal although Rochdale would not be thanking David Perkins who gifted it to him.

Perkins dallied on the ball and conceded possession deep in the danger zone to Ciaran Toner and he fed Logan in the inside-right channel. Logan’s pace was too hot to handle for any potential tacklers before he dispatched a drive into the bottom corner, cancelling out Rochdale’s lead just six minutes after the visitors had opened the scoring.

Adam Le Fondre gave Dale that lead when he got the slightest of touches on Adam Rundle’s free kick. Keith Hill attributed the goal to the Dale youth team coach: “It was Chris Beech who suggested we try this free kick where Adam Le Fondre makes this little movement and it came off a treat. That is why are good as a footballing team, we are always bouncing ideas off each other.”

Logan led the fight back for the home side, his goal gave them confidence, and for a twenty minute period before the half concluded their brand of fast flowing football allowed them to lay siege to the Dale goal. That spell could and should have seen them take a lead into the break.

Dale keeper James Spencer saved well from Logan but the rebound fell to Toner, only for Kelvin Lomax to block his close range volley off the line, while Le Fondre’s attempted clearance on a Tom Newey freekick whistled inches past his own post.

In hindsight this was a period in which Grimsby needed to score, given that they could not reproduce this level of football in the second half. Isaiah Rankin had the golden opportunity to do so, flashing a header wide from Logan’s cross, and then Bolland could get nothing on Rankin’s centre when only a touch was needed.

Rochdale had somehow weathered the storm. Fortune favoured the brave thanks to a second half performance that was the most convincing in defence and most fluent in attack of their season thus far, although it is worth mentioning that they could have had a half time had Le Fondre, four yards out, volleyed in instead of over from Rundle’s cross.

Before Rochdale gained control however, the home side’s head of steam had not quite blown out in the dressing room and it was they who created the opening chances of the half.

No entertaining encounter is complete without a moment of controversy and a contentious linesman’s flag gave this game its most debatable decision. Grimsby had the ball in the net when Gary Jones headed in from close range. Spencer could only parry Newey’s shot and his defence could only hack the ball in the direction of Toner, whose cross it was that Jones headed home. Cue the linesman’s intervention, who declared that Dale’s attempted clearance had gone out for a corner to Grimsby. The natives were less than polite in pointing out that in their opinion the ball had not crossed the by-line before Toner knocked it back.

Rochdale took advantage against a decidedly miffed home side by scoring a wonderful goal and from there they never looked back. Le Fondre fed Rundle on the left and his pin-point back-post cross was crying out for the firm downward header into the net that Glenn Murray duly put on it.

The goal brought Murray into his own, clearly giving him the confidence he has so desperately needed, and he showed signs of a return to becoming the unplayable striker that he was in the second half of last season. His manager was impressed, saying: “Glenn Murray was brilliant, outstanding and at times unplayable but in fairness he owes us a few games like that. He is an outstanding player and if he gets into those positions regularly we will score lots and lots of goals.”

This time Grimsby could offer no retaliation and Rochdale won it thanks to the solidity have a back four marshalled by Rory McArdle, who Keith Hill described as “a back-four on his own”. Spencer did not have a save to make and the home fans, who were so appreciative of their team’s football in the first half, were quick to voice their negative opinions at the game’s end.

Attendance: 5,829

Grimsby: Barnes, Logan, Bennett, Fenton, Newey, Till, Bolland, Clarke (Hunt 60), Toner (Bore 68), Jones, Rankin (Taylor 61).
Subs not used: Montgomery, Whittle.

Rochdale: Spencer, Lomax, Kennedy, McArdle, Perkins, Muirhead, Jones, Doolan (Holness 44), Rundle, Le Fondre, Murray.
Subs not used: Russell, Thompson, Higginbotham, Prendergast.

Booked: Jones, McArdle.

Attempts (on target): Grimsby 11 (7) Rochdale 9 (6)
Freekicks: Grimsby 23 Rochdale 9
Offside: Grimsby 1 Rochdale 6
Corners: Grimsby 6 Rochdale 10

Referee: D Whitestone.