"They fully deserved the victory" - Keith Hill on Accrington defeat

Photo: Jon Coluccio

Chris Dagnall's injury time goal proved to be nothing more than a consolation as Accrington held out for a deserved three points.

Rochdale manager Keith Hill admitted that Accrington Stanley deserved the three points after their 2-1 win at Spotland on Saturday.

Goals from Robert Grant and Michael Symes condemned Dale to a first home defeat since August, with Chris Dagnall's injury time strike proving to be nothing more than a consolation.

The Dale boss held his hands up after the game and said that his side had had an off day. "Accrington fully deserved the victory," Hill said. "I think they were better than us. The first half was a bit of a nonsense in respect of the conditions. The pitch was lovely but for some strange reason we adopted a quite direct approach and it can't work for us, it doesn't work for us that sort of approach. They got a goal out of nothing, which isn't uncommon against Accrington, we always seem to go 1-0 down against them.

"It was really frustrating to concede just before half time because we wanted to get in at half time and try to sort a few things out.

"It just didn't transpire for us today and you get your games like that. I am really disappointed I must admit but I've got to give credit to John Coleman and Accrington. I thought they were excellent today, I thought they battled superbly. They've got a bit of something special with Andrew Procter in midfield and Michael Symes up front and they could be an outside bet for a play-off place."

Symes sealed the points with a wonder strike from 25 yards midway through the second half but Hill thought that Dale were hard done by in the build up to the goal.

"It was a great goal but I'm disappointed that the referee didn't spot a challenge or infringement just prior to that," Hill continued. "I'd expect better from that situation but it was a great strike and Symes is more than capable of doing that.

"I'll give all the credit to them and we were different to the way we normally are today. When doing something well you continue to try and keep doing it. I don't know whether the conditions had an impact on the players. We probably had one or two players too short today.

"You get your games like that and sometimes you've got to wrestle the game away from the opposition and I thought they were very competitive, they pressed us very well and they made the game very tight and it was difficult to get the ball down. When we did get the ball down we weren't as good in our pass selection as we could have been and we didn't create enough opportunities against the opposition. Credit to them but we probably turned up with 75-80% of our A game today and that's not good enough to beat anybody never mind a team who is in good form."

Hill was forced to make one change from the side that beat Grimsby a week last Saturday, with Gary Jones sidelined by a hamstring injury he picked up during that game. Dale Stevens made his first league start in replacement. The Dale boss said that his side missed Jones while Stevens' performance did not live up to expectations. "We always miss our captain, he's an excellent player for us and with Dale Stevens coming in I would suggest he didn't have the type of performance that we thought was coming from him," Hill said. "Today was a very difficult game for him against Procter in midfield who had an excellent game."

Chris Dagnall's injury time strike left Dale with a further six minutes to bring themselves back from the dead.

Hill said: "I just thought that the goal gave us another opportunity, an opportunity that we probably didn't deserve but I would have taken it if we'd have got an equaliser."