Dagenham 3 Brentford 1

Brentford were well beaten in East London as a spirited Dagenham team forced their way into the play off positions. Wycombe meanwhile closed our lead at the top to two points after a win at Luton.

In summary, Brentford were poor last night against a well drilled Dagenham team. It looked like we had set up for a draw but off days from several key players meant a damage limitation exercise in the end.

Sam Williams missed a chance to open the scoring, dragging a shot wide after Billy Clarke approach play, but Dagenham took the lead soon after as Saunders stroked the ball home following suspicions of a handball from Benson.

Brentford again missed a chance to score - Marcus Bean this time missing the target - whilst Ryan Dickson cleared a cute Strevens shot acrobatically from the goal-line. Daggers scored their second shortly after when a poorly cleared corner fell to Solomon Taiwo who hit a cracking shot from the edge of the box.

Andy Scott then shuffled his pack - with Damian Spencer replacing Newton as Brentford went 4-3-3 - but Daggers struck again with a header from a corner shortly after half-time.

Spencer, who gave away several fouls with his slightly clumsy bustling play but at least seemed to want to win, bundled home a late consolation goal to help limit the damage to Brentford's goal difference.

A healthy Bees support was left very dissapointed last night as several star performers failed to shine - with Hunt, Bean and Wood unable to control the midfield and Billy Clarke failing to make an impact. Sam Williams also had a poor game and seemed to be heavily affected by his early miss.

Manager Andy Scott admitted after the game that Dagenham "were the better team" but hinted that "we have three or four players playing with injuries".

Brentford need to win their individual battles at Darlington this weekend as they seek to earn the points to see them promoted. Two wins from here will see us promoted as champions, but after last night's horror show many fans would probably just take promotion right now.

Some mention should be made of poor stewarding that saw Brentford fans allowed into an overspill stand and then effectively trapped there for most of half time - with no refreshments or toilet facilities. Fortunately tempers were kept in check in an incident that could easily have turned ugly.

Below Par Bees - Hamer, Osborne, Bennett, Phillips, Dickson, Newton (Spencer), Hunt, Bean, Wood, Clarke, S.Williams (M Williams),.. unused subs Brown, Poole, Halls.

Thanks to Brentford Rival and beesotted for the match report

April 22, 2009