Five Conclusions: Yeovil Town 1 Rochdale 1

It was a return to Huish Park after 35 days of postponements and away days and the Glovers showed they’re no slouches against promotion-chasers Rochdale. Here are Ian’s Five Conclusions…

We held our own against promotion hopefuls. Even the most optimistic of supporters must have gone into yesterday with massive apprehension going up against the – at the time – league leaders. Rochdale were in unbelievable form and had not dropped a single point from a winning position all season…until they came to Huish Park. We showed all the buzzwords yesterday: character, determination, spirit, camaraderie and played some good football before we were frustratingly reduced to 10 men.

Aaron Jarvis owes his teammates a Thatchers. When Jarvis replaced Campbell (who had one of his better games) the match was nicely poised, we’d enjoyed some decent chances and were holding our own but the first time we tossed the ball up for Jarvis to compete the worst happened. I thought it was sheer idiocy. We know how Jarvis competes and looks for contact but the way he led with his forearm, arm not looking at the ball gave the referee very little choice. I know he plays looking for contact and roughing up his opposing defenders, but I thought it was really poor and he let everyone down.

Finn Cousin Dawson stepped up. It’s often been a case of always the bridesmaid never the bride for FCD. He’s not one of the first choice centre backs and he’s been shoe-horned into the floating wingback role, so it was nice to see him get his flowers yesterday. His header to bring us back level was pinpoint perfection and he had a solid game in at right centre back. For me, he’s more dependable than Ferguson.

Mafico made another mark. What a find Dakarai Mafico is. (Hat tip to Declan Skura too) The Cardiff youngster was in centre midfield yesterday – or number 6 as the cool kids say – and he was fantastic. Brave on the ball, forward-thinking, confident to play through the lines. He did his defensive work and got us attacking too. We may only get to enjoy him this season, (although with Cardiff chasing promotion to the Championship they might let us have him back next season, right?) but the way he knits everything together between defence and attack is well beyond his years.

It was a great game of football. Billy Rowley described it as ‘cat and mouse’ whilst admitting modern football can be a bit boring (hear, hear) but I thought it was an entertaining game. We played some nice football and after 35 days since we were last at Huish Park, I could see an improvement and the style beginning to come through. In the moments when we played out from the back it looked more instinctive than it has done. We did the dogged stuff for the last 20 minutes and the players deserved their standing ovation from the supporters at full time.