Hockey: Rochdale 3 - 3 Golborne

Rochdale faced Golborne this weekend looking to build on the impressive 5-1 win in the opening fixture last weekend.

The opening 15 minutes looked as if another victory was in sight, with Rochdale strong in possession and dominating all over the pitch.

Early on a short corner was awarded to them, the injection was driven to Michael Waddicor at the top of the D and then passed out wide to Mark Eden, who flicked the ball between the oncoming keepers legs to open the scoring for Rochdale.

From then on the tempo dropped, Rochdale did go on to score two more goals, both from James Shepherd adding to his hat-trick last week, making it five in two games this season.

The first was a quick response to a Golborne goal, when Waddicor, placed a pinpoint aerial over the top of the full back, Richard Borritt plucked the ball out of the air and drilled the ball across the D for Shepherd to plant in the back of the net.

His second came from another short corner, Waddicor’s flick hit the post and fell at the feet of Dave Gowers, who shot at goal and Shepherd deflected it past the keeper.

Golborne had chances to snatch victory with two head high drag flicks cleared off the line by Jonathan Herreran.

The Oulder Hill man-of-the-match went to Brian Robinson.

Michael Waddicor, captain, said: “The first 10/15 minutes showed what this team is capable of, if we had played like that for the rest game we would have been out of sight early on, but it was not to be and we have to move our thoughts to next week.”