Rotherham United - 2 (Branston 30. Robins 33.
Crystal Palace - 3 (Freedman 39. Riihilahti 57. Smith 77.)

I guess any first match of the season is a tricky affair, but when it involves a newly promoted side, who are keen to shine in front of their home crowd, it becomes a doubly awkward assignment. The side though, did us proud, and if this is a sign of things to come we can all look forward to a wonderful season. That the side not only took on a winning team; you don't get an automatic promotion spot without winning; but managed to come from behind to take out the match, must give all Palace supporters great hopes for the winter months ahead.

At the same time, of course, it must give all Rotherham supporters, players and management, cause for concern. To blow a two goal lead, and end up losing a match at home can only be described as disappointing, to say the least; and one can only assume that there will be a lot of work in the background at Millmoor in the next few weeks. Palace may well need a lot of work propping up their shaky defence.

One can only hope this is done sooner rather than later!

So, on to the match report; and a chance to "crow" about the performance of the side; at least for the majority of the team, that is.

To have watched the first half hour or so of this match would not have been particularly enjoyable for any Palace supporter, but by now we are all used to the bad news which seems to follow us around, and just once in a while it is punctuated by a great reversal in form such as was shown today. The start of the match was all action, unfortunately all action from the home team. Mark Robins saw his shot blocked on the line and then Chris Swailes let fly a great shot from almost halfway, which flew over the bar whilst everyone just watched. Swailes then forced a corner, and was unlucky not to get a touch on the ball as it floated over from the resultant corner-kick.

Guy Branston headed wide of the mark then Paul Warne repeated the effort; and all this happened before Palace got off a shot in anger. A rare move up the field saw our shot deflected for a corner, and the home side rushed back to the other end, but Richie Barker was the culprit this time, once again heading the ball wide of the net.

Dougie Freedman finally got free of the shackles, and a good run upfield saw him in a one-on-one situation with the keeper. In a brave move Mike Pollitt dived at Dougie's feet to pull off a perfect save and stop the visitors from "stealing" the lead. The action moved inexorably back to the other end of the pitch, where this time Chris Sedgwick managed to slice the ball wide, when it looked far easier for him to score.

The pressure was bound to tell though, and on the half-hour we finally cracked. A corner to the Millers saw Branston head the ball goalwards bound, and though Alex managed to get a hand on the ball, and in fact collect it at the second attempt, the officials ruled that the ball had crossed the line before his second grab, and accordingly we were 1-0 down. Despite some doubt from the Palace contingent, and of course no doubt from the home fans, the goal stood, and no amount of argument was ever going to get the decision reversed. What we needed to do was concentrate on the game at hand, but what transpired was that we fell further behind almost immediately upon the resumption of play.

A poor clearance by the defence saw the ball fall neatly to Robins, and coolly picking his spot he slammed the ball home to make the scoreline read Rotherham 2 Palace 0. They must have been starting to think that this League was easy! We certainly seemed to be making things that way for them.

It was not to be long though before we managed to get a chance of pulling something back in the game. Dougie was by far and away the liveliest of the Palace attackers, and in another move on goal he was well clear before Branston, the scorer of the home side's first goal, brought him down from behind, and the ref had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. Dougie picked himself up, literally dusted himself off, and sent Pollitt the wrong way to make the scoreline a little more respectable at 2-1. Despite an inordinate amount of time before we reached the halftime break; it appears that referees now add a minute for every goal scored plus any other perceived stoppage time; the only other chance of the half fell to Warne, whose shot went wide.

One can only guess at the words that were spoken in the respective halftime sheds, but one can surmise that neither were very complimentary, the visitors being a little more scathing than that of the home contingent.

The start of the second half saw Sedgwick take a shot that was well stopped by Alex, but suddenly Palace seemed to move up a gear, and almost in the twinkling of an eye the game took on a totally different complexion. Both Dougie and Jamie Smith produced good saves from the keeper, but the equaliser was not long in coming. Julian Gray put in a good cross that Dougie headed goalwards. The keeper beat the ball out of danger, but Dougie managed to put the ball back into the path of Aki Riihilahti, who slammed the ball home from just five yards out. Suddenly we were on equal terms, and looking to finish by far the stronger.

It was another cross from Gray that produced the winner for the visitors, this time coming from a well-placed shot by Jamie. It was great to see Jamie back on the goalscoring list, let's hope there are a few more goals out there somewhere for him. Despite further pressure from the home side, resulting in a couple of good chances being well saved by Alex, mainly from the dangerous Robins, we managed to hang on to the end of the match to notch up a well deserved win. Clinton Morrison did manage one shot on goal late in the piece, but the management will be looking for him to be more aggressive in the goalmouth as the season progresses.

Following such a good opening to the season from the Eagles all Palace supporters are now looking forward to the visit of Stockport County. It was against Stockport in the final game of last season that we finally secured our First Division status for this year; and the fans will be looking for nothing less than a repeat performance this time round.

Colin Pryce

Rotherham United: Mike Pollitt, Marvin Bryan, Chris Swailes, Guy Branston, Paul Hurst, Chris Sedgwick (Andy Monkhouse 84), Kevin Watson (Nick Daws 86), Stuart Talbot, Paul Warne, Richie Barker, Mark Robins.

Substitutes not used: Ian Gray, Trevor Berry, Chris Beech.

Crystal Palace: Alex Kolinko, Jamie Smith, Dean Austin, Fan Zhiyi, Julian Gray, Hayden Mullins, Aki Riihilahti, David Hopkin (Simon Rodger 29), Dougie Freedman, Clinton Morrison, Jovan Kirovski (Gregg Berhalter 89).

Substitutes not used: Matthew Gregg, Andrejs Rubins, Wayne Carlisle.

Attendance: 6,994

Referee: Mr R Pearson (Peterlee)