A good away point - Rotherham 0 Bees 0

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But Nathan Elder out for rest of season

Around 700 Bees fans travelled to the City of Steel to face Rotherham at Don Valley and to hopefully see the Bees continue their unbeaten run.

Rotherham were unbeaten against the top five teams all season, and boasted a mean defence that had only conceded 12 at home. Brentford would need to be up for it and try to work out how to break the Millers down.

The game started poorly for Brentford, as Rotherham used their big striker to good effect, but despite a couple of half-chances, Rotherham never capitalised and allowed Brentford to start playing their football. Time and time again, Rhodes and Charlie held the ball well and tried to play good football to create something, but to be fair to Rotherham, they were very solid defensively.

Few chances came either team's way, although Brentford were easily the superior team going forward, relying on playing good football, rather than just lumping it forward. Wood, in particular, was excellent getting forward and after 30 minutes, Rhodes laid the ball off to Wood who burst behind the defence, and looked up for the pass - but failed to find his man.

Brentford were showing glimpses of real quality, but with Rotherham winning everything in the air against Rhodes and Charlie, the half petered out and can only be summed as "boring".

The second half saw Rotherham start brightly again, but Brentford also got forward well and a long-range screamer from (I think) Bean was deflected just wide of the post for a corner. Rotherham also got forward well and had a really good chance to score, but the shot was skewed wide. Other than that, Elder came on for Rhodes, but after only ten minutes was knocked out by a clash of heads. Elder - who has broken his cheekbone and currently has no vision in his left eye - was stretchered off and substituted for Karleigh, who went up front for the last 15-20 minutes.

Rotherham looked the more dangerous at this point, and Brentford knew that a point would suffice, and sat back, hoping to counter-attack, but with the long ball were unable to really get forward and make the chances that might win the game. Again, the half petered out, despite the efforts of the Bees players, and all in all, this was a 0-0 bore draw.

To be honest, Bees fans won't mind, as Rotherham were very strong and didn't commit players forward, and Brentford were playing similar tactics. Neither team wanted to concede or open up the game, so the stalemate went on for the entire 90 minutes.

A well-deserved point, though, and if we can win at home, draw away, then it'll take a gargantuan effort from another team to overhaul us.

Finally, please can we not play Rotherham again whilst they play at Don Valley. I would say that Withdean is much worse for the view, but the atmosphere was utterly non-existent and it was hard for the fans to get going.

Thanks to Dan Suh and BIAS for the match report

March 9, 2009