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Poor finishing coupled with a number of appalling refereeing decisions cost
the Daggers dear as they were held to a one-all draw at Victoria Road on
Saturday.
 With Brennan starting the match and Heffer and Shipp both featuring in
midfield, loan signing, Jim Rodwell, was given a place in the back line with Mark Rooney being relegated to the bench. Up front, Ken Charlery
partnered Junior McDougald.
From the kick-off, the Daggers did not seem to settle and fell behind as early as the third minute when a corner from Alex Sykes fell to Carl Heggs who headed towards goal. Despite saving well, Tony Roberts was unable to do anything to prevent Mark Cooper slotting the ball home to make the score
1-0 to the visitors.
 The home side's first real attempt on goal came with 13 minutes on the
clock when a Mark Brennan corner was headed over by Lee Goodwin.
Soon after, a breakaway from Travis saw him run virtually the full length
of the pitch, only to see his shot fly wide of the post.
This signalled a slight improvement in the Daggers' plat and they nearly
grabbed an equaliser in the 22nd minute when a left wing cross from Junior
McDougald was narrowly missed by Ken Charlery.
 Within two minutes, the Daggers did get the goal when a left foot shot from
the edge of the penalty area by Mark Janney was parried by Perrin and Charlery
(above right and left, celebrating his goal) rounded the keeper and slotted home in style.
With few goalmouth incidents, the first half looked to be petering out to a
dull stalemate. Just before half time, however, Charlery had a great
chance to level from a Lee Goodwin cross, only for his tame header to be
easily claimed by Perrin in the visitor's goal.
The second half continued in much the same vein with neither side creating
a great deal of excitement. Forest Green defended in numbers and seemed
content to soak up the Daggers' pressure and the home side seemed unable to
capitalise on the chances they did create.
Arguably the Daggers' best opportunity of the half came when a cross from
Ken Charlery was met by Junior McDougald, and he struck a great volley that
had Perrin beaten. Unfortunately, his shot crashed against the post and
rebounded to safety.
At this point, I feel I should mention the standard of refereeing of the match. Mark Ives is a referee that we have been unfortunate to have officiate a number of games since our return to the Conference and, in every one of those matches, he has been nothing short of awful. In all my many years of watching semi-professional football, he is by far the worst referee I have had the misfortune to see. Saturday's match was no exception.
The first controversial incident occurred when McDougald was clearly pulled back in the area by a Rovers' defender and inexplicably Ives waved play-on.
The Daggers though, did have virtually all the play in the second half with Lee Goodwin, Danny Shipp, Steve Heffer and Danny Hayzelden all going close for the home side.
Forest Green's best chance came when Travis broke clear only to see his
shot parried by Tony Roberts and Jim Rodwell clear the danger.
 The second incident surrounding Ives' ineptitude was towards the end of the
match when a cross from Danny Shipp (right) was, somewhat unsubtly punched clear by a
defender and yet again Ives waved away the appeals despite having a good view
of the incident.
The Daggers wasted another great chance though when Ken Charlery was put
through one-on-one with Perrin and instead of scoring, he tried to square the
ball for McDougald to tap in but scuffed his cross badly and the danger was
cleared.
Ives then proceeded to play only two minutes of added time despite
signalling Perrin to stop time wasting on a number of occasions and there
having been several substitutions.
The draw was more a case of two points dropped than of one gained and
Boston's convincing 3-1 home win over Northwich leaves the Daggers 4 points
behind the Pilgrims, albeit with a game in hand.
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