Doncaster 1, Huddersfield Town 2

Aug 30 2005 By Mel Booth, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

IT can't be a bad sign when Town were nowhere near their best and still went top of the League I table.

Peter Jackson's side `won ugly', as the Americans would say, and dug deep to record a first League victory at Belle Vue in 16 years.

The last time Town started with 13 points from six matches, in fact, they ended up getting promoted in the 1994-95 season.

And, while it would be very unwise to start talking about promotion at this early stage, Town have laid a very solid foundation and shown a lot of he qualities needed to challenge at the top of the table.

One of those has been strikers in form, most notably goal-a-game Pawel Abbott, but Town were always going to need strikes from other areas and, yesterday, it was the midfield who came to the party.

Firstly, Chris Brandon rattled home his first goal since April with only 100 seconds on the clock to give Town the ideal start and rock Rovers right back onto their heels.

Then, with only six minutes to go to half-time, skipper Jon Worthington took advantage of a poor clearing header from Adam Hughes and drilled home a scorching 25-yard shot.

Some of the Town fans massed behind the goal were celebrating long before his shot hit the net because they could see Andy Warrington had no chance after he had earlier denied fine efforts from Worthington, Danny Schofield and Abbott.

A Doncaster upsurge was perhaps to be expected in the second half and Town did well to resist until the 62nd minute, when Paul Rachubka felled the raiding Lewis Guy.

Referee Richard Beeby, who had an awful match, awarded just a yellow card and, while Rachubka couldn't prevent Michael McIndoe from scoring from the spot, that decision later proved crucial when Town's No1 saved bravely at the feet of the same player on a foray into the box on 78 minutes.

Had he mistimed his challenge, Rachubka would have been following Guy down the tunnel - he raised his hands to Tom Clarke and saw straight red four minutes earlier - but he flicked the ball off McIndoe's toes and stopped a certain equaliser.

Rachubka also dived full length to turn away a Dave Mulligan free-kick as Doncaster strived manfully to get level, and his performance knocked a lot of the stuffing out of the late home efforts.

Victory was not achieved without alarm - few teams have won at Belle Vue in recent years anyway and none of them without problems - but the points were reward for some sterling work by Town and their stamina showed through in a second match in just three days.