By Andy Baggott
September 29 2005

Leeds bounced back from Saturdays defeat against Ipswich with a good 3-1 victory over Derby. The irony is, that we created more chances against Ipswich, but, as Blackwell has been asking for, the luck was with us last night. Don’t get me wrong, the win was deserved, but lady luck certainly played her part. The first stroke of good fortune actually came from adversity. After a fairly even opening 25 minutes, Richard Creswell limped off and was replaced by Robbie Blake. The former Burnley and Birmingham man added a spark that had been missing, and combined well with Hulse. It was this combination that opened the scoring. Blake mis hit from 10 yards, but the ball squirmed to Hulse, who almost fell over the ball, but prodded home from 6 yards. Within 5 minutes, the lead was doubled. A superb cross from Lewis was bravely headed home at the near post by Hulse. Derby almost got straight back into it, but missed a good chance – not the only time that they were wayward when well placed. On the stroke of half time though, the game was virtually over. Lewis hit a 35 yard shot that kicked up, and led to Derby keeper Lee Camp parrying. Hulse was on it in a flash, and rifled home into the top orner, to complete a 12 minute hat trick. The second half died a death. Derby tried to make a game of it, including a change of formation, and Leeds were caught between preserving their lead, and going for more goals. As it was, they really did neither, and Derby got a late consolation goal when Gregan deflected a corner into his own net. The scoreline was about right – we were the better team, but the ball dropped for us in the area, whereas it hasn’t in other games.

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Blackwell can take a lot of heart into Saturdays game at Watford, and we’re now up to a healthy 6th, with a game in hand…