Bees restore pride at Spotland (From Times Series)

Bees restore pride at Spotland

3:57pm Wednesday 19th November 2008 in Sport

Pride was restored at Spotland on Tuesday night, but that was of little consolation as Barnet slipped out of the FA Cup.

There will be no record-breaking fourth-round appearance for a third year running. The Bees have now exited all three of this season’s cup competitions at the first hurdle.

But they at least went down fighting on this occasion.

Having raced into a two-goal lead, Paul Fairclough’s troops just could not stem the Dale tide in the second half, though it took Adam Le Fondre until extra time to complete his hat-trick.

After Saturday’s humiliating experience against Notts County, you have to give the Barnet players credit for making a game of it against their League Two rivals, one of the form teams.

But, at the end of the day, Dale had just too much for the brave Bees. It was not through lack of effort that the visitors fell short, and that, at least, is of some comfort.

Barnet withstood some intense Rochdale attacks, with the defenders, under fire for their performances of late, throwing themselves in front of the ball, and keeper Lee Harrison answering those who question why the veteran still wears the number one jersey.

However, Dale did just enough and once Le Fondre had chipped home the decisive goal in the 105th minute to complete a fine comeback, there was no way back for poor Barnet.

It had all started so well, Fairclough getting the perfect response from his players following the Notts County debacle. Few would have guessed it was largely the same set of players on duty again.

John O’Flynn and Albert Adomah put the Bees 2-0 up within 20 minutes and, when they got to half time, fully deserving of their lead, the away fans were starting to dare to believe that Barnet, so often at their best when the chips are down, were on their way to another famous victory.

But Le Fondre struck ten minutes into the second half and then grabbed an equaliser with 17 minutes of normal time to go.

It could have gone either way after that, but Dale, with the momentum, grabbed the decisive fifth goal of the night, the visitors finally running out of steam.