Gillingham (1) 1 Jackson 17
Rochdale (0) 1 Le Fondre 61
Att. 4,029
Entrance: Season ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 45/3,416
Match Report
It is an age-old question that is posed after a home draw, is it a point gained or two lost? On this occasion I would come down in the point gained camp.Rochdale, last year’s beaten play-off finalists have made another good start to the season and showed for long periods last night why they have to be taken seriously as contenders again this term.
After a bright start from both sides, Gillingham fashioned a superb goal to take the lead. Curtis Weston fed Albert Jarrett with a beautiful cross field pass. The winger’s cross was pin point perfect for Simeon Jackson to turn home from close range. Two passes and a tap in, it was incisive and must have delighted manager Mark Stimson, as it did everybody supporting the Gills.
Albert Jarrett has become a player that can delight and frustrate is probably less than equal measure. Give him a little space and he has a cross that can drop on a sixpence and along with the goal made three or four further chances. But his downside is that he can be a liability virtually everywhere else of the pitch. Particularly poor in his defensive duties offering no protection to John Nutter who is struggling for form anyway.
Gillingham may well have gone into a two goal lead when Jackson was one-on-one with the keeper who saved well, but the feeling was that Jackson should have done better. Before the break Simon Royce made a stunning close range stop to preserve the half time lead.
I’m sure there are idiots in every part of Priestfield Stadium, in the Coffin Dodgers we have one particular “gentleman” for whom part of his afternoon/evening’s entertainment is to harangue the linesman from the first whistle to last and to select one of the opposition for similar treatment. The Rochdale player on this occasion was Adam Le Fondre, who admittedly liked a whinge. For this he became the rhyming equivalent of a merchant banker, so there was more than a twist of irony when Le Fondre beautifully curled in a leveller for his fifth goal in three games, some banker. Likewise, the butt of this individual’s criticism on the home side is presently Albert Jarrett, who in an off-the-wall selection was named man of the match.
Despite ending the game, due to injuries, with ten men, Gillingham exerted some pressure in the closing moments but were unable to force a winner. So a point gained? I think so.
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