Coleman refuses to blame ref

John Coleman slammed his players as Rochdale let a two-goal lead slip to draw 2-2 against Dagenham & Redbridge at home.

The home side were cruising to a third successive victory on Saturday thanks to first-half goals from Dele Adebola and Bobby Grant. But McIntyre's 60th-minute dismissal for a challenge on Josh Scott in the penalty area changed the course of the game. Daggers skipper Mickey Spillane scored from the resulting spot-kick and, just minutes later, Sam Williams headed an equaliser. But Coleman's anger was directed at his team rather than the match official after McIntyre's somewhat soft red card. "You get bad decisions, Dagenham had a couple of bad decisions against them and they have had a red card decision rescinded so far this season, so bad decisions happen in football," Coleman said. "But the referee didn't head the ball in for the second goal or pass the ball through the middle of our defence for the first goal. So I'm not going to moan and gripe about anyone, we'll concentrate on what we can affect, and that's our players. "I wasn't happy with our first-half performance, I thought we played in fits and starts as we did in the recent home game against Barnet, and the match was heading in a similar direction to that game. But once we went down to 10 men we were all over the place and Dagenham deserved to get back in the game."