Hill praises hat-trick hero Henderson after win over Gillingham

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2018 by PA

Rochdale boss Keith Hill hailed hat-trick hero Ian Henderson as the home side brushed aside Gillingham with a 3-0 win.

It was Dale’s first home win of the League One season and Henderson’s first ever hat-trick and Hill suggested it was footballing perfection as he was pleased with his side’s effectiveness at both ends of the field.

“I thought Ian Henderson was excellent and I don’t know how anyone could ever doubt him,” he said.

“I thought the two big lads, Calvin Andrew and Aaron Wilbraham, played really well outside and we felt we could get in that way and stop them going through Tom Eaves. We were excellent at doing that so I’m really pleased with the performance. I feel we are developing some real leaders.

“You have got to be a survivor and win football matches as a manager and a player and we did the business today. I didn’t think it was perfect in any respect, the players took ownership of the opponent.”

Henderson’s first came in the ninth minute when he collected a loose ball on the edge of the area and smoothly slipped it beneath Tomas Holy. His second came in the 18th minute following a clever pass from Matty Gillam.

And the hat-trick strike was the pick of the bunch in the 64th minute when he met Wilbraham’s cross with a superbly executed scissor kick.

It could have been worse for the Gills as Dale had also seen two efforts ruled out for fouls, Ryan Delaney and Henderson both seeing their efforts chalked off.

The visitors were poor in the final third, Tom Eaves going closest to scoring early in the second half with a 25-yard shot which crashed against the crossbar.

With just one point from their last six games, Gills chief Steve Lovell is growing increasingly frustrated.

“They were making things happen in the box where we weren’t,” he said.

“We had a number of crosses going in and nobody getting in there. You can’t make excuses and I’ll never make excuses. I will stick up for the players when they deserve it but I can’t do that today, they let us down, they let everybody down.

“Tom Pope should have scored with a header at the end of the first half. You don’t get many chances away from home and you’ve got to take them.

“I thought there were some good performances, but you can’t get away with only four or five performing.

“If you look at Tom Pope, he didn’t get a kick all day because of the way their centre halves battled all the way through. Our centre halves just got beat up all day.

“Goals change games. Last season we were going away and getting a couple of goals and then hanging on. We haven’t done that for a while and it’s something we need to get back to.”