Dale continued their fine away form with an away victory at Home Park. Goals from Gary Jones and Paul Connor secured Dale's victory, after Simon Coleman put Argyle in the lead, becoming their top (and only)scorer in the process. Full report now online.

In the scorching Plymouth sunshine, Dale collected their third away win of the season, after Paul Connor grabbed a second half winner. It was just what Dale deserved from another very hard working performance and a controlled second half, and despite an incredible seven minutes of indicated injury time, Dale held on to make it seven points from nine in the League so far.

Like Tuesday, it would be very difficult to single any individuals out above others for praise, as the entire team battled hard, and must have lost pounds in sweat, as they struggled to cope with the tropical conditions.

Nevertheless, coped they did, and they rightly came out on top banishing the pain from that Saturday in May in the process, to record their first win at Plymouth since 1969.

Upon arrival at Home Park, it was pretty clear that there has been some major changes since our last visit in May. Three sides of the ground have been demolished, leaving just rabble. All the fans were then squashed into just one section of the ground. Don't know why they demolished all three sides in one go, as it gave a distinctly non league feel to the ground.

However, any thoughts that the reconstruction work has robbed Home Park of its ye olde Devon character are sadly mistaken, as we still had a bunch of Argyle fans to our right who seemed to spend more time watching the 200-250 Dale supporters rather than the game. Mind you, having Argyle not scored all season, who could blame them?

Dale went into the game with a patched up side. There was no Lee Todd who injured himself on Friday whilst training, there was no Gareth Griffiths, who had not recovered from the knock that he picked up on Tuesday evening's game at Huddersfield, Paul Connor had to make do with a place on the bench, as he was not fully fit as yet, and of course there was still no Richard Green.

That meant that we had to play with the 4-5-1 formation what worked at Huddersfield, with Dave Bayliss coming in for his first match of the season, and Sean McAuley making only his second start for Dale in a couple of season. Flitcroft retained his place in midfield after recovering from the injury he picked up at Huddersfield on Tuesday.

The early stages of the game were fairly quiet. Perhaps it's more difficult playing in a one sided stadium, but there seemed to be a bit of hesitancy from both sides. Indeed, there didn't seem to be any action at all till Argyle scored in the 12th minute.

I say Argyle scored, but in reality they didn't as it was Dale who took the lead for them. Argyle's Buster Phillips (remember Alan Ball's quote about him being the first ten million pound player?)  put in a cross from the left which brought a bit of head tennis, before Simon Coleman tried putting it out for a corner. Unfortunately, for the Dale defender his header went straight into the top left hand corner, with Edwards no chance of stopping it.

In doing so, Coleman not only put Argyle in front, but he became Argyle's leading scorer in all competitions for the season, as they had not scored a goal since Mickey Evans put them in front at Spotland in May!

However, if anyone had any doubts about the strength of character of the current Dale side, then think again, as Dale responded in the best way possible by going straight down the other end and equalising within a minute of going a goal down! A combination of passes involving Wayne Evans, Keiron Durkan and Clive Platt saw Gary Jones receive the ball at the edge of the Argyle box before driving the ball past Romain Larrieu to put Dale back onto level terms. Sacre blue!

The game was hotting up, which was quite surprising given the soaring temperatures in the Devon Sunshine, however referee and Premiership reject Rob Harris did his best to quell any sort of excitement by blowing his whistle on regular occasions, even booking Fordy as one point, when if truth be told, there probably wasn't a bad tackle in the entire match.

Argyle came close to regaining the lead soon after, with a couple of close efforts. We had to crossbar to thank on one occasion, when Coughlan's shot rebounded to safety, and an impressive looking Edwards to thank on a number of occasions.

It wasn't all one way traffic, as Dale had a couple of forays into the Argyle half. Durkanio had a good chance, but took too long to control it before firing wide, and Oliver had a couple of long range efforts which came close.

Half time Argyle 1 Dale 1

A lengthy half time gave supporters chance to top up their Sun tans, and enjoy the Plymouth burgers which outlasted the famous Cornish pasties which had disappeared quicker than Coleman's fringe.

The second half kicked off at around 4:05,and it seemed that the half time team talk from Parkin had given the players that bit more confidence. The game was certainly there for the taking, as frankly Argyle looked to have little about them, and perhaps Parkin had made the point that we should be looking for three points by the final whistle.

Dave Bayliss had a good chance to take the lead for Dale, when he had a fine header tipped away by French keeper Larrieu, who had a fine game throughout.

Argyle soon brought on new signing Nicky Banger (and that's Banger as in Bangers and Mash, not so that it rhymes with danger) who scored a hat trick against Dale on his debut for Southampton eleven years ago, and from coming off the bench, it seemed like he was intent on carrying on from where he left off, as he forced another brilliant save from Taffy, who now sadly lacks the My Little Pony style tuft at the top of his forehead.

Clive Platt was withdrawn and replaced by Paul Connor, probably to stop him collapsing with exhaustion on the pitch, after another performance which saw him never stop running. Plattini looked tired at the end of the first half, and a knock to the head requiring treatment from Andy Thorpe slowed him down further.

The more the second half progressed, the more the game looked to be there for the taking as with the exception of the odd effort, Argyle, missing star midfielder Friio, looked to be no better than a lower half of the table side, and this obviously went through Parkin's mind, as he stuck Kevin Townson on for Fordy, sensing a possibility of victory when I feel most of us would have been content with a draw at one of our 'bogey' grounds.

The substitution paid off for within five minutes of coming on as a sub, Townson had helped Dale take the lead. Argyle sub Joe Broad played an awful back pass which went straight to the England International Kevin Townson. Townson passed it to Connor whose shot was saved well by Larrieu, but the rebound went back to Townson, who again put Paul Connor in the clear to score the winner. The goal didn't go down too well with Argyle keeper Larrieu who raced a full fifty yards to remonstrate with the linesman claiming offside or something, but there were apparently two defenders on the line, and a booking followed him back to his nets. 

The remaining twelve minutes of the game saw Dale comfortably hold out, despite the odd scare. A goalmouth scramble led to a corking shot from McGlinchey, resulting in a typically world class save from Taff. Another was from the fourth official who indicated seven minutes of injury time. Thankfully the ref only played about three of them. Argyle boss Sturrock spent the final minutes huffing and puffing from the touchline to no avail, his face turning the colour of his purple shirt in the process.

So our first win at Home Park since 11th October 1969 when 2 goals from Dennis Butler and one from Sir Reg gave us a 3-2 win. Another bogey ground bites the dust thanks to Parkin's men. We are a pleasing if meaningless third in the league today. The bottom 3 places are occupied by the 3 Devon clubs - bet that's never happened before. We spoke to a lovely old Plymouth fan on the way out who summed their problems up simply - "we can't score" - and we know only too well the damage the goal drought can cause.

On the journey home, we spoke to some Scunny fans, happy on their journey home after beating Monday's opponents 4-0 in Devon. They reckon we'll have "no problems", but as we all know, there are no foregone conclusions and must be no complacency. Remember York at home last year - they were in allsorts of trouble and we lost despite bossing the game. Exeter will come and defend, hoping to score on the break. We as fans must be patient and supportive, the players must have the same level of commitment and concentration they have shown away from home this season.

Photo: Action Images

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