Accrington Stanley 0 - 3 Darlington

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Saturday Aug 18 2007 03:00

Darlington's 100% start to the new season continued at Accrington this afternoon, as a double from Polish striker Pawel Abbott helped complete a comfortable 3-0 victory.

The Quakers, who beat Wrexham 2-0 at home last week, will not get an easier win on the road all season, as Tommy Wright opened the scoring with a point-blank header on 25 minutes.

Accrington just could seem to find their range at any point during the 90 minutes, and the visitors capitalised with complete ease.

Abbott, a former Preston North End striker and a recent £100,000 signing from Swansea, had a couple of speculative volleys in the first half - but as it turned out, they were just range finders.

And left winger Chris Palmer also looked lively, as he cut inside with some joy on a number of occasions - he also provided the cross for Abbott's first three minutes after the break.

He completed his brace with a 90th minute penalty after substitute Gregg Blundell was wrestled to the ground by Accrington's Robbie Williams.

Unfortunately for the home side, who also began the season with a win away at Wycombe, they just never got going.

The natives were becoming increasingly restless at Stanley's failure to shoot at goal. Plenty of times they got into decent positions in and around the box but on most occasions the chance to let fly was refused.

That was until burly striker Lee McEvilly had a couple of chances that he should have done far better with just before the break.

First he had a shot from a tight angle on the left of the box tipped round the post by David Stockdale, before he scuffed wide after breaking down the right.

Stanley's best second-half chance came courtesy of midfielder Andy Proctor's long-range drive that flew just over.

  • 90
    That's it, it's all over, the referee has blown the final whistle.
  • 90
    Pawel Abbott takes a penalty for Darlington and scores!.
  • 79
    Darlington are replacing Tommy Wright with Gregg Blundell.
  • 77
    Accrington Stanley are replacing Graham Branch with Leighton McGivern.
  • 75
    Graham Branch is booked for unsporting behaviour.
  • 71
    Kevin McBride is replaced by Ian Miller.
  • 63
    John Miles is being taken off, Shaun Whalley has come on in his place.
  • 49
    Goal!! Darlington have scored with Pawel Abbott putting it in the back of the net.
  • 46
    The second half is under way with the score currently at 0 v 1.
  • 45
    The ref has blown his whistle for half time.
  • 41
    Tommy Wright goes into the referees book for unsporting behaviour.
  • 34
    Ricky Ravenhill is being taken off, Michael Cummins has come on in his place.
  • 32
    Tim Ryan goes into the referees book for unsporting behaviour.
  • 26
    Goal!! Tommy Wright scores for Darlington.
  • 0
    It's 3pm on Saturday, August 18th, the match has kicked off.

Statistics

Accrington Stanley
Shots on target 8
Shots off target 8
Shots off bar/post 0
Fouls 8
Offsides 2
Corners 6

Darlington
Shots on target 7
Shots off target 3
Shots off bar/post 1
Fouls 14
Offsides 3
Corners 6

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