Well, here we go again. It is great to know that I am once again the supporter of a one-man team...That man is Jason Dodd!! Is there nothing he doesn't do? He took nearly set-piece, throw-in, as well as a composed defensive performance...he probably makes the tea and drives the team coach as well.

It was good having Dodd there as he was a calming influence on the defence and made some intelligent passes. You can see him looking up and thinking when he has the ball.

There was a debate in the car on the way up as to what the team and formation would be as we pondered a possible 5-3-2 set-up. As it turned about it was a sort of 4-4-2. I say "sort of" because Leon Knight was playing behind Colin Kazim-Richards in the hole between midfield and forward. This was a good move because, good as Richard Carpenter is, he and Charlie Oatway are not the most creative midfield duo around. This allowed Knight to drop deeper and pick the ball up so he could release Kazim-Richards, in theory. It did not really work out like that in the end and I thought Knight was a little flat in the first half.

It was a lively opening to the season with some end to end stuff. We started to win free-kicks which surprised me considering we were away at a team with a decent home crowd. One such free-kick down our left saw Dodd float over a great ball and Dean Hammond appeared to head home. The increasing regularity of Hammond turning up in the box unmarked to win headers leads me to think he can teleport.

Derby equalised just 5 minutes later. The ball into the box seemed to be left by Guy Butters and Paul Peschisolido got control of the ball to rifle a shot into the top corner.

I feared the worst at this point but I was worrying needlessly. This was not the Rams team that took us apart last season. Whether this was the change in manager I do not know and do not care either. Granted Rasiak, Idiakez & Smith were lively and generally Derby's movement was good but it was not a patch on what we saw from them last season...Most seem to be in agreement that County were the best team we played last term.

So, with Derby not being as good as last year this allowed us to shock, horror, play quite of bit of football ourselves. It was quite nice and a mark of how far we have progressed from the tactics Mark McGhee used to get us out of League 1.

All was good as the half went on and it was fairly evenly poised. Derby had their moments with a couple of shots which stung hands of Henderson in goal. Well, they must have stung quite bad as his handling was not all that sure. As decent as Derby were in the attacking third I thought our defence coped fairly well. Luckily for us the Pride Park outfit's defence were not as efficient as there striking colleagues. They were definately no thrills where they would hoof the ball into touch at even under the smallest of pressure. The full-backs Davies and Johnson were particularly poor. CKR was a handfull for their defence and whenever he got clear they were all over him like a rash.

CKR did well and put himself about with some nice touches. One thing he will need to work on though is his reluctance to jump for headers when the ball is launched forward from the 'keeper or the defence.

With our new flowing football and County's defence in sympathetic mood we were able to create some half chances. A decent move which saw CKR, on the edge of the box play in Dodd who appeared to try and play the ball across the face of the goal to a team-mate. Had he elected to smash in a shot straight off we might have regained the lead. To prove how busy CKR was, he managed to get free approaching the penalty area but rather snatched at his shot and it went well wide.

Then with 15 minutes of the half left we had a funny 10 minute spell where we turned into the Albion of old. Nearly every player gave the ball away at least once. This lifted Derby and put them into the ascendancy. They were finding their way into our area rather to easily on occaision but dogged defending kept them from scoring. Their momentum was halted though with the referees whistle taking centre stage.

I thought the ref was having a good game and was letting the game flow when he could, although he seemed to miss the Derby defenders getting up close and personal with CKR when he had the ball. If they wanted to be that affectionate with a fellow man then there would have been plenty of takers at Pride, I am sure. Anyway, back to the ref...The Derby fans were starting to get upset with the man in the middle but I thought other than one decision where he gave us a throw when the ball appeared to come off Reid the fans had nothing to moan about. But they did and this interrupted the Rams rythm enough for us to put together one chance before the break where CKR went in for a near post ball but was unable to convert under pressure.

Derby came out after the re-start with a bit of purpose about them and we were under early second-half pressure. A couple of crosses and players getting free in the area did nothing than cause a few fluttering hearts as Henderson came out of his 6 yard box. These attempts for the ball often saw him getting stuck in no mans land. This was no more highlighted when he came for one deep cross which was headed back across to an unmarked Rasiak (I think) in a central position and with only Butters on the line Grzegorz headed over.

With the early storm negotiated we started to knock the ball around once more. We were good going forward but seemed unable to find the final pass that would unlock the Rams defence for a clear chance on goal. This was helped by Leon's sudden up in workrate and he was back to working as hard as he did at the end of last season and he really was getting all over the pitch.

As we continued with our good performance CKR shot wide and Hammond once again turned up in an penalty area unmarked. Sadly though, by Dean's standards he headed wastefully wide.

At this point the ref picked up an injury and had to go off, so we had a shuffle around of officials.

The second half was still fairly even but towards the end County started to run out of steam. In contrast we carried on going, whether this was down to the extra fitness work we have done in pre-season I do not know. What I do know is that this lead to us finishing the game much stronger than Derby.

Once again CKR found himself chasing a ball towards goal with a Rams defender. The defender was predictably all over him but he managed to wriggle free. Then as it appeared he was about to pull the trigger another Derby player clipped him...We got nothing.

An almost identical race between CKR and a Derby defender was on shortly after with the Derby man doing what we had become accustomed to seeing. The ref didn't spot anything so it was left to the linesman to flag furiously for us to gain the free-kick. Between the officials they did not seem to know who it was who committed the offence so no one got even as much as a talking to. From the resulting free-kick, Knight curled the ball around the wall and but it thumped against the base of the post and out for a goal-kick. Lee Camp did get across his goal well so he may well of had it covered had it been in danger of going in.

We did press a bit more but that pretty much was that and a very usefull point has been gained with a good performance.

Albion & England forever.

Thimble Keegan
Worthing BHA