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  • Kick-off: 15:00
  • Venue: Spotland Stadium
  • Attendance: 3116
  • Referee: Lewis, R

Live Commentary

90 mins

The ref has blown his whistle for full time.

90 mins

Rory McArdle is booked for unsporting behaviour.

86 mins

Lee Ridley is being taken off, Martin Smith has come on in his place.

81 mins

Tommy Wright goes into the referees book for unsporting behaviour.

77 mins

Darlington are replacing Gregg Blundell with Scott Wiseman.

75 mins

Rochdale are replacing Adam Le Fondre with Lee McEvilly.

74 mins

It's red. He's off. Alan White has been sent off.

72 mins

Darlington are replacing Julian Joachim with Pawel Abbott.

57 mins

Joe Thompson is being taken off, Kallum Higginbotham has come on in his place.

55 mins

Ricky Ravenhill goes into the referees book for unsporting behaviour.

54 mins

Clark Keltie takes a penalty for Darlington and scores!.

46 mins

The second half is under way with the score currently at 3 v 0.

45 mins

Half time whistle is blown by R Lewis

45 mins

Adam Le Fondre takes a penalty for Rochdale and scores!.

37 mins

Goal!! Rochdale have scored with Glenn Murray putting it in the back of the net.

36 mins

Neil Austin is booked for unsporting behaviour.

36 mins

Adam Rundle is booked for unsporting behaviour.

31 mins

Alan White is booked for unsporting behaviour.

23 mins

Goal!! Rochdale have scored with Joe Thompson putting it in the back of the net.

0 mins

It's 3pm on Tuesday, January 1st, the match has kicked off.

Match Report

Rochdale underlined their play-off credentials with a clinical destruction of the high-flying big spending visitors.

After a scrappy start, Dale teenager Joe Thompson opened the floodgates when he sneaked into the box to head home Tom Kennedy's cross for his first senior goal on 23 minutes.

In the 37th minute Thompson turned provider as his cross was greedily fired home by Glenn Murray for his fifth goal in as many games.

Two minutes later Dale keeper Sam Russell, an ex-Darlington player, produced a wonderful save to claw away Ian Miller's header and it proved to be a crucial moment in the match.

Just before the break, Adam Le Fondre won, and then coolly converted, a penalty having sneaked in behind Ian Miller.

The visitors were handed a lifeline on 55 minutes when referee Lewis spotted a foul by Simon Ramsden on Alan White and skipper Clark Keltie belted home the resultant spot-kick.

Any hopes the Quakers might have had of staging a comeback ended on 75 minutes when White saw red having received a second yellow card for a litany of poor challenges.

Rochdale are now within touching distance of a top-seven place despite having played two, and in some cases three ,games less than the teams around them.

Rochdale Team

Darlington Team

Rochdale

Darlington

Corners

6 8

Fouls

10 22

Goal attempts

12 9

Shots off target

6 4

Offsides

5 6

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