Jim Bentley: First home win of season is massive result for Rochdale

Jim Bentley hailed Rochdale’s first home win of the season as a “massive result” after they beat Barrow 2-1 at Spotland to climb out of the League Two relegation places.

Liam Kelly curled Dale ahead in the 18th minute and Scott Quigley doubled their lead after 75 minutes when he stretched to turn home Devante Rodney’s driven centre.

Niall Canavan’s 89th-minute header set up a nervy ending for the home side, but they were good value for the three points, to celebrate their first back-to-back league wins of the season following last weekend’s victory on the road at Newport.

Bentley said the result came as a big relief following a poor start to the campaign which saw the club sack former boss Robbie Stockdale in August.

“It’s a massive result,” said Bentley.

“The home form has not been good enough and we’ve been on at the players all week about building momentum and confidence after last week’s win at Newport to get to where we can get to in terms of work ethic, spirit and togetherness.

“Credit to all the players, they are all having a go and the competition for places is getting better.

“It makes my job that bit more difficult when it comes to picking the team because they all want to play, but they are all striving to get better and you can sense that about them now.

“Coming off the back of the win at Newport, we had a good week in training – preparation has been spot on.”

Barrow missed a gilt-edged chance to level just after the break through Billy Waters, and while manager Pete Wild admitted Dale were the better team on the day, he still felt they should have taken a share of the spoils at least given the chances they created.

Wild said: “It’s the first time this season that a team has been better than us, which was frustrating.

“They were far better than us physically and they had more desire than us. That said, we’ve had enough chances to get something out of the game but they’ve taken their chances while we are left to rue ours.

“But I’ll stick my hands up and say ‘they were the first team to be better than us’.

“We switched off from a throw-in for their first and what really frustrates me is that teams do not create goals against us, we give teams goals.

“I went over to the fans at the end and see one or two of them throwing their arms about. That’s disappointing because there’s no need for that.

“Alright, we’ve lost a few on the bounce, but it was never going to be easy.

“Our start probably magnified our position and maybe gave us a false position. So I’d say the players are giving everything they’ve got so let’s just remain focused and pragmatic and hopefully we can get back to winning ways.”