The Daggers prevailed over Nigel Clough's Burton Albion™ at the Glyn Hopkin Stadium
on Saturday in a nasty sort of match spoiled by another classic Conference refereeing performance
by Mr Beck and sustained moaning from Clough and his team.
The Daggers started with the team that won so well at Altrincham with Paul
Benson back on the bench. The bench lacked depth though and this could be a
problem moving forward for John Still unless he can unearth a couple more young
diamonds this season.
Burton started the better but never really looked much like scoring despite camping in the Daggers half for long periods.
Nigel Clough (pictured right in 2003) looked a pale shadow of the player that we
have seen in past seasons, looking overweight and immobile, almost like he was
attached to the centre spot by an invisible bungee rope.
With his Burton team already struggling near the bottom of the Conference
table Clough led the niggling of referee Beck, whining at almost every decision
yet escaping without a yellow card somehow until he finally waddled out of the
game just after the hour to ironic chants of "Clough Out" from the
Daggers fans..
After
23 minutes of ineffectual Brewers pressure the Daggers suddenly broke out and
took the lead when Chris Moore got free up the left and crossed low for Lee Goodwin
(left) to sidefoot in from close range. Crane in the Burton goal, who had
already dropped a simple catch almost to a Daggers forward should
probably have cut the cross out but the Daggers were not complaining.
It is Lee's third of the season already as he settles in to his midfield
role, adding some real steel there.
Now
on top, it could have been two shortly after when Anni Uddin (right) met a Glen
Southam free kick from the right perfectly but saw his header rattle back off the
post with Crane nowhere close.
Shortly before half time the Daggers lost Jake Leberl who limped off after being crunched
by Jon Shaw in a nasty tackle that unbelievably saw the ref award a foul against Leberl.
On came Ram Marwa in Leberl's place and he did enough in the rest of the game to
suggest that he could make it tough for Jake to win his place back.
The second half started again with Burton on top but unable to make it count. Just after the hour the Daggers doubled the lead when Craig
Mackail-Smith (left) ran at defenders up the Daggers right and his pinpoint cross picked out Chris Moore who headed home a fabulous goal.
With just over ten minutes to go Burton finally found a reward for their
continued pressure and were back in the game briefly when Dale Anderson's back heel from Stride's cross went in the corner to make it 2-1, but Tresor Kandol eased the
home jitters with a headed goal from Scott Griffiths cross four minutes later to seal the points.
The win sees the Daggers up to 5th in the early season Conference table with
three tricky games in the next ten days at York and home to Accrington and Grays
that will probably tell us whether that is a realistic position or not.
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