Derby came into this game off the back of two disappointing defeats; a home game against bottom of the table Barnsley should have been the perfect antidote.  Instead the Rams found themselves struggling to contain this supposedly weaker opposition.

The game started brightly for the Rams, as the momentum of the game swung in their favour. Rob Hulse twice came close to putting the Rams ahead; firstly with a shot deflected wide behind the goal, and then an agonisingly close cross from Commons which Hulse failed to make contact with.

On the 27^th minute Hulse was rewarded for his work; an inch perfect cross from Lee Croft out wide on the wing found the head of the charging Hulse just inside the six-yard box, he couldn’t miss.

Unfortunately for the Rams this marked the high point of the evening. Just 10 minutes later the visitors were level; a superb strike from Hammill from 20 yards curled past the finger tips of a helpless Bywater and into the Derby net.

No fan from any club can bemoan the opposition a goal of such high class as Hammill’s, however Barnsley’s second of the game was lamented from all sectors of the Pride Park crowd.  Just short of the hour mark Commons was fouled in the Barnsley half, the Derby players expecting a free kick all stopped in their tracks; instead the referee waived play on allowing Barnsley to break. The move was finished by Andy Gray’s calm finish past Bywater after being fed in by Emil Hallfredsson.

The game ended in a flurry of goals; with eight minutes injury time added the Rams were pushing hard for an equaliser, this however left them heavily exposed at the back. With little way of a challenge Barnsley sub   managed exactly this and found himself in the Derby box with just Bywater to beat, easily rounding the Derby keeper he slid the ball coolly into the net to make it three for the night and surely bag up three points to take back to Yorkshire.

The Rams weren’t yet finished and did manage to pull one back to save some face.  Defender Shaun Barker jumped highest to meet Teale’s corner.

All in all this was yet another disappointing result for the Rams, and whilst the standard of football is infinitely higher than this time last year they need to begin to ground out some positive results, beginning in South London on Saturday.