Sitting in the Fitness First bar I had to remind myself that it was Bournemouth I was coming to see as I was surrounded by football hungry Poole Town supporters
Fed up, and rightly so, by yet another bad weather postponement they came in numbers and the South Stand were going to get the vocal benefit of the Red and White Army
While sitting in the North Stand getting peppered by quite frankly the worst training shots I've ever seen anywhere I was shown a tweeted picture of the queue to get into the one remaining stadium bar - who would have thought we were now so rich we could turn away such income .....
Burnley started with a high pressing game which at the beginning of the season would have really put the wind up Bournemouth but now they have much calmer heads on more experienced shoulders and didn't allow themselves to be rushed into errors
I thought Vokes was carrying a little more timber than before but he used it well by being dominant in the air until he challenged Tommy to a game of head conkers and came second on 12 minutes
When I heard we were playing 4-4-2 I was thrilled although that was tempered when I found out it wasn't Yann the man partnering Grabban up front
Clearly the plan was to play our 2 speedsters in behind the frankly massive Burnley defence but with really heavy "touches" and being so easily knocked off the ball Rantie especially couldn't make the most of this attacking tactic
Got to admit, apart from speed I'm still not convinced that Rantie actually brings anything to the team - if it's just speed we want a quick trip to Poole Runners club would have saved 99.999% of the 2.5m we've gambled on him
This apart, we'd started the better - the formation was allowing us to move forward far more freely and the link up between the midfield and attack was far better than the usual gulf of space we'd got used to in previous weeks
It took 17 minutes for Burnley to register that they were here for anything other than a draw as a quick break away down their right had a long, low ball swinging in with Ings galloping in to get on the end of it
We all held our breath hoping that Camp was ready to don his usual super hero cape when in slid Francis and he managed to intercept the ball
I'm sure its no coincidence that since we bought Adam Smith, Francis has upped his game by 50% and I thought that he was superb throughout
With him on the right and Pugh on the left Burnley were constantly stretched and the pressure was mounting on the travellers from the north
So it was really no surprise that after 10 minutes of chasing shadows they finally decided to just lump Rantie up in the air just outside the box
Cometh the hour, cometh the man and after 21 minutes of ferocious tackling and woeful passing up stepped Arter to make his mark
Unfortunately for him whilst distracted by a wall that simply wouldn't move back, Ings sneaked in and swapped the match ball with a beach ball. This only became obvious as Arter thumped it and it ballooned out of the stadium.....
The rest of the half it was Bournemouth leading the way with the occasional dangerous quick break from Burnley to make sure the defence hadn't fallen asleep but while O'Kane was mopping everything up we were succeeding in making a highly rated team look very average
Saying that, very average would have been a compliment for the near lino as he seemed to make mistake after mistake but did at least have the good grace to chuckle at the ironic whooping when he finally called Inge offside (better late than never)
The other 2 things of note were Ritchie doing a passable impression of McEnroe by adopting a white bandage (headband) for a persistent head cut and O'Kane going off for a hopefully not too serious injury
MacDonald is ok, but he's no O'Kane and who were people going to vote for Man of the Match now .....
Half Time : 0-0
Clearly at half time Ritchie realised that the white bandage clashed with his dodgy barnet as he'd changed it to black for the second half but it was Burnley that started the sharper doing the early pressing but both Cook and Elphick were majestic at the back
I've now spoken about 3 of the back 4 so to finish the review we come to Harte
Much maligned for not having Daniels' attacking flair he did everything that was asked in defence and brings something to the team I don't think anyone else does - high speed, high quality delivery
From free kicks, corners or free play his balls in are a joy to watch - if only we had a big man to capitalise ...... or so I thought
On 50 minute a typically venomous Harte corner was flicked on by the towering giant that is Rantie and the ball glanced into the far corner to put the hosts 1-0 up
It was Rantie that claimed the goal but it did leave us all thinking "really??" and to be honest I didn't care - WE WERE ACTUALLY WINNING!!!
Before the game we were all saying that the thing we lacked was getting that first goal - if we could get that we were sure we'd build from it and win comfortably
Well, we were wrong
That goal was the kick up the ar*e that Burnley obviously needed and they really came at Bournemouth
The game had changed to Bournemouth hitting on the break as Burnley pushed forward and they do say that if you're used to winning not only can you keep finding a way to win, but luck seems to follow you - that proved true on 66 minutes
Some good interplay on the right had the ball being crossed in but as the block for the cross came in, the ball looped up off the defender's leg and over the defence, straight onto the boot of the on-rushing Treacy who smashed the ball in from close range
Horlicks - the lead lasted just 16 minutes and we were all square again at 1-1
Kermorgant then came on for Rantie and his first touch was to win an important header and force a corner
Finally we had someone on the pitch that could head AND hold the ball up without being brushed off like an annoying fly
The last time Rantie had tried to shield the ball he went down like a sack of spuds prompting the North Stand wags to sing "he sleeps where he waaaaaants....." - a nice touch ;-)
The substitution had Bournemouth in the ascendancy again and it was a real treat to see so much action at the North Stand end
On 73 minutes Grabban burst through and from a tight angle forced a good near post save from the keeper. The resultant corner had Cook soaring the highest head the ball back for Elphick to crash the header at goal only for the keeper to brilliantly tip the ball over the bar
Two minutes later Kermorgant met a Cook long throw and his downward header just went agonisingly wide of the right post
On 78 minutes another Bournemouth attack from the right had Ritchie sprinting clear and whipping a low ball into the path of Grabban
As he ran at the ball the defender crashed into him knocking him clean off his feet. He fell in the box but only a free kick was given and no card despite him stopping the goal scoring opportunity as the last man, which surprised me
Perhaps the ref didn't consider Grabban being through one on one as a goal scoring opportunity......
Kermorgant managed to chip the ball over the wall that was only about 3 feet away from the ball but the
keeper managed to get over to save comfortably
It was all Bournemouth now but there was a marked difference in attitude between Kermorgant and Grabban when the ball was crossed in the air. Kermorgant saw it as a challenge and went up for even the lost causes, Grabban just looked slack-jawed at the ball like it was alien to him
I think he's after emulating Lineker's record of never being booked - my throat is still sore from shouting "for God's sake make a challenge!!!"
Francis had the game's last chance on 85 minutes as good work from Pugh on the left had his low cross make it all the way to him at the far post but he just couldn't keep his shot down as it clipped the bar on the way to the North Stand
Final Score : 1-1
Summary - I really enjoyed this game. Yes I wish we had more chances on goal and yes I wish Kermorgant had started but for 80 of the 90 minutes we, little Bournemouth, were the better side
It's this "little" tag that maybe were are starting to shake off in the players' heads
We are not being dominated by anyone yet we are still giving teams way too much respect - they should be fearing us at Dean Court and we should be playing like that we KNOW that
This game, with an attacking 4-4-2 formation gave a glimpse of what we are capable of and I hope we build on this as the season continues
For once in our history injuries aren't severely weakening us and every team we put out can compete with the big boys - we just need to learn how to turn close defeats info draws and draws like today into wins
Star Man - Harte - every time he stood over the ball the Burnley defenders' knees knocked louder than a group of Spanish castanet clackers on speed and was solid as a rock in defence
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