Games 34-38 – Still in the hunt!

First of all, apologies for the lack of blog updates lately. Have had several different situations arise resulting in a lot less free time for me to write.

Anyway, back to the action on the pitch. Following the disappointing last minute defeat to Bournemouth, a long trip to Chester was next on the Daggers agenda. It all seemed to be going so smoothly for the visitors as goals from Ben Strevens and the ever impressive Matt Ritchie ensured Dagenham led 2-0 at half time. In fact the away side kept this lead until the last five minutes when a very uncharacteristic effort resulted in Chester grabbing two late goals to escape with a 2-2 draw. Many fans wondered how this late collapse would affect the team going into two successive home games against Lincoln and Morecambe.

Unfortunately, this latest setback seemingly hurt the Daggers and dented their already fragile confidence. Two of arguably Dagenham’s worst performances of the season saw them crumble 3-0 and 2-0 at home to Lincoln and Morecambe respectively. Very few plus points were able to be taken out of either match and only the extremely optimistic of fans considered the team to have an outside chance of reaching the play offs.

Three days after the very forgettable Morecambe performance, Dagenham travelled to a Port Vale side also very low in confidence. What felt like a fairly low key encounter contained two considerably low key performances. Thankfully though, it was the Daggers who managed to stop the rot with a scrappy but nevertheless effective 1-0 victory due to Jamie Guy’s first goal for the club.

The victory certainly didn’t propel John Still’s men back into the play off frame but the inability of the teams above to pull away meant that the Daggers had an outside chance if they could possibly put a run together. The following Saturday saw Dagenham travel to a very in form Chesterfield side that had began what seemed to be a late surge of their own for a play off spot. Nevertheless, Dagenham put in a performance reminisent to their displays in 2008. Unfortunately, lady luck seemed to have deserted the visitors in 2009 and a goal out of nothing from Martin Gritton looked set to condemn Dagenham to their first away defeat for a while and end their outside play off hopes. Continued pressure from the Daggers followed and a rare late goal from Sam Saunders was their reward for an impressive and determined display. In fact, Dagenham would probably have felt unlucky not to take all three points after Ben Strevens hit the post following the equaliser.

With Shrewsbury and Bradford once again dropping points, John Still’s team find themselves only six points off the play offs which is fairly amazing considering their poor run of form in 2009.

The stage was set for the visit of table topping Brentford and the visit of the Skysports cameras. A Daggers victory would see the Essex side rise to within three points of the play offs with 7 games left to play. However, for the 2nd time in the season, a Daggers match had to be called off due to floodlight failure. The financial implications as a result look to be fairly heavy but that is for another thread!

Instead, Dagenham will take on Macclesfield at Victoria Road on Saturday knowing that nothing but a win will do if they wish to keep realistic play off ambitions. However, in a topsy turvy yet entertaining season, who knows what will happen next!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm by leewilson.