Hill fumes at ref D'Urso

Goalkeeper Jamie Jones and Matty Lund saw red in the space of eight second-half minutes to wreck Rochdale's chances of getting back into the game after Bradley Dack's 14th-minute opener for the home side.

And Hill did not pull any punches in his criticism of D'Urso, who sent off Jones shortly after an hour for a foul on Cody McDonald and then Lund on 69 minutes for fouling on Dack.

"I'm not happy with the standard of refereeing, I'm not happy with Andy's performance today," said the Rochdale boss.

"I'm really disappointed with him and his team of officials. There's a lack of responsibility on the actions that they took today, which will have no impact on their future.

"That was a big game for us today, I thought the lads were magnificent, especially when we went down to eight outfield players in the second half.

"There was one time I was contemplating getting the right number of players sent off to get this game abandoned, but that's not me, I don't want to use gamesmanship as an excuse.

"I have to suffer now as the referee has had a really bad game, and it's probably cost us something from the game.

"We've been talking about referees this season, the standard has been poor. There's no point me going to see Andy after the game angry, I want to see improvement.

"I want to know why he made these decisions without thinking. He should know better, he's an experienced referee but he's got a hell of a lot of things wrong."

Dack opened the scoring when he headed Doug Loft's corner past Jones early on.

On-loan striker John Marquis came closest to adding a second for the Gills as his header was cleared off the line by Ashley Eastham.

Leading scorer Ian Henderson had the best chance for Dale when his deft chip hit the post shortly before the interval.

"I'm delighted with the three points, but it certainly could have been better," said Gills boss Justin Edinburgh.

"I think the two sendings-off disrupted the game, and took the tempo out of it. We lost our rhythm and we didn't punish Rochdale enough. However, we got a clean sheet, we took three points, its back-to-back wins at Priestfield so I'm pleased.

"Bradley has been excellent since I've been here. It's a fitting tribute scoring the winning goal on his 100th game for the club. He's got a big future ahead of him. He's popped up with some very important goals this season"