Gillingham (1) 2 McCammon 8, Oli 88
Dagenham and Redbridge (1) 1 Saunders 41
Att. 6,945
Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 45/7,537
Match Report
It is one of those strange quirks of football that following a couple of away performances at top three clubs that have deserved better than the one point that has been obtained, three points are put on the board for a less than fluent display. At this late stage of the campaign it is points that matter and perhaps the little bit of luck that has been missing has arrived at an opportune time.Following his tenth booking of the season and an impending two match suspension, Adam Miller was dropped to the bench in favour of Charlton loanee Josh Wright. No doubt the official line is that Wright needs to embed himself in the side for those two matches that Miller will be missing, but there is more than a suspicion that the poisonous section of the Gillingham support have won the day and Stimson feels the need to protect his player.
Stuart Lewis was also recalled in preference to Nicky Southall and produced a decent performance that won him the man of the match award.
A bumper Easter crowd, just shy of 7,000 and no doubt boosted by a few freebies courtesy of the Manager’s Challenge, were assembled hoping to see Gillingham getting their promotion challenge back on track after a winless run of four games.
The home side were quick out of the traps and ahead after just eight minutes. John Nutter’s surging run forward ended with a shot that Tony Roberts did well to parry but only into the path of Mark McCammon who fired past the recovering keeper.
Two bizarre pieces of footwork from Simon Royce placed their lead in jeopardy. First a clearance from the Gills’ keeper was blocked by Paul Benson, arguably with his hand, but his shot rolled slowly, agonisingly past the post. Five minutes later, with the same duo involved, Royce was thankful for a second piece of good fortune. A poor back pass from Garry Richards left Royce to kick clear, this time his clearance rebounded off Benson back into his grateful hands. Priestfield joined with the keeper to offer up a prayer of thanks.
The equaliser that had been long coming arrived five minutes from half time. Ben Strevens had time and space to cross to an unmarked Sam Saunders who had the simplest of tap-ins to level the score.
The early part of the second half saw the home side frustrating their support with passes going astray and very little impression being made by the strikers. Midway through the half Dennis Oli was introduced for Wright and with ten minutes remaining Mark Bentley came on for McCammon, and immediately presented Dagenham with a new set of problems. A right wing run set up a chance for Curtis Weston and another for Simeon Jackson as the sands of time were fast slipping away.
With a couple of minutes remaining, a free kick, awarded much to the disgust of the Daggers’ Sam Saunders, was swung in from the right by the left footed John Nutter from which Dennis Oli rose virtually unchallenged to head home a priceless winner for the home side. This was preserved by Simon Royce who turned away a Graeme Montgomery effort in a final heart stopping moment.
Three vital points on an Easter Monday that saw several of the contenders fail to win. An automatic promotion place still seems unlikely but a play-off spot is looking ever more likely. More often than not it is the team with momentum going into the play-offs that win the prize, could it be that the momentum has just swung back to the Kent side?
No comments:
Post a Comment