JOHN Ward felt sympathy for his players, after they were denied a victory by a late equaliser at Rochdale in a 2-2 draw this afternoon.

JOHN Ward felt sympathy for his players, after they were denied a victory by a late equaliser at Rochdale in a 2-2 draw this afternoon.

The U’s dominated the first half-hour, and were good value for their 2-0 lead through Ian Henderson and Kayode Odejayi, only for Magnus Okuonghae’s red card to change the whole complexion of the game.

The Dale, even with the numerical advantage, struggled to get on top, but they salvaged a point via goals from Marcus Hollness (43) and Gary Jones (88).

Ward admitted: ““I thought we were desperately unlucky not to get all three points, for the second week running, but for different reasons.

“We dominated the game last week (2-2 home draw against Yeovil), made a couple of errors at the back and ended up drawing when we could have won comfortably.

“Today, at 11 versus 11, we were fantastic. We scored twice and could have got another two. We had a great opening half-an-hour.

“Obviously it gets more difficult when the sending off props up.

“But we continued to look solid, and we dealt with it well. We were strong today and we didn’t deserve the late goal that when in against us,” added Ward.

The U’s boss had no complaints with Okuonghae’s sending-off, for a professional foul on Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro when the Dale winger was homing in on goal.

“I thought it was a sending off,” confessed Ward.