Captain Connolly Salvages Sweet Point Against Burnley

Derby County 1 Burnley 1

It took Derby late into injury time to salvage a point from this encounter with Burnley in front of a sundrenched Pride Park.

The first half was a testy affair with end to end football. Gary Teale twice came close for the Rams, once with a long range effort forcing Brian Jensen into a diving save in the bottom left reaches of his goal, and secondly an attempt from the edge of the box which was also saved well by Jensen although this time at a more comfortable height.

Burnley came closest through a Clarke Carlisle header that rebounded off the cross bar eventually finding its way out to Rhys Williams whose powerful shot was spectacularly pushed over the bar by Bywater. 

The second half was decidedly less frantic than the first, but despite the rams having the majority of the better play during its early periods it was Burnley who took the lead through Chris Mcann just before the hour mark.  In a calamitous defensive error Bywater and Albrechtsen collided whilst going for the same ball, which in turn bobbled to the Claret man who simply rolled it into the empty net. 

From this point onwards it seemed that Derby had little left in them, and were settling for the defeat. The appearance of Tito Villa with 15 minutes left on the clock offered some hope as he injected some energy back into the Derby performance, but any attacks were proving to be less than fruitful. 

And so came injury time; thousands of the Rams faithful were already pouring out of Pride Park, when seemingly out of nowhere Villa controlled the ball on the edge of the area laying off to Teale whose tasty ball across the box was met by the diving header of Captain Connolly. 

Whilst a home draw may often seem like a particularly unremarkable result, a point snatched from the jaws of defeat tasted as sweet as any victory for many a Derby fan today.