Forest youth look mature in defence

Derby County 0 Nottingham Forest

Not for the first time, an occasion primed by high expectation failed to deliver a fitting product. The first meeting of these sides in three and a half years created an atmosphere fully reflective of the intense mutual hostility with which these East Midlands rivals regard one another but after 90 minutes at Pride Park a 30,000 crowd was compelled to reflect that, really, nothing much had happened.

Derby had their chances, as did Forest, but none so clear cut that either could say the result did them an injustice. David Johnson, Forest's seemingly irrepressible leading goalscorer, had some justification in claiming to have been denied his 16th goal of the season by an offside flag, but even that incident provoked only the mildest sense of injustice.

"David did ask me if I could see whether he was onside," said the Forest manager, Paul Hart, after Johnson's 18th-minute strike, set up by Marlon Harewood's through pass, had been ruled out. "I'm told the television shows he was definitely level with the last defender, but these things happen.

"I'm happy that we performed extremely well in the first half and kept our discipline in the second, when Derby had a real go at us and we were made to defend, which, in my view, we did brilliantly." Fourth in the First Division table, with games against Leicester and Norwich coming up, his youthful side are doing not at all badly.

Hart also pointed out that for almost all the players put out by two once great clubs now in severely reduced circumstances, the derby experience was entirely new. Only Mathieu Louis-Jean and Marlon Harewood survived from the Forest side beaten 1-0 here in the Premiership in April 1999. Derby's line-up, brimful then with Jim Smith's first wave of imports, has changed beyond all recognition.

Setting aside Rob Lee, the average age of John Gregory's side was 21. The youngest, the striker Izale McLeod, is a £70-a-week trainee who turned 18 only this week. "Many of them hadn't even seen a game like this, let alone played in one," Gregory said. "I was proud of them." None the less, a goal would have been welcome. Forest, for whom Riccardo Scimeca, operating from deep midfield, pulled the first-half strings after Hart chose to leave the Scottish international Gareth Williams on the bench, had perhaps four openings they might have made count. Before half-time, Harewood, denied one chance by Ian Evatt's timely tackle, fluffed a better one when Eoin Jess set him up in front of goal. Then Jim Brennan, failed to capitalise early in the second half, when the 19-year-old goalkeeper Lee Grant, who was otherwise sound, spilled the ball at his feet. And Harewood, sent clear by Williams in stoppage time, let himself down with too heavy a first touch.

Then again, Derby, who saved Georgi Kinkladze for the last 25 minutes and had Forest on the back foot in the second half, saw Malcolm Christie blaze wide and McLeod have the ball whipped off his feet by the 18-year-old Michael Dawson within the same 60 seconds, nine minutes from time.

Derby County (3-5-2): Grant; Evatt, Riggott, Higginbotham; Hunt, Murray (Kinkladze, 67), Lee, Bolder, Boertien; McLeod, Christie. Substitutes not used: Elliott, Morris, Oakes (gk), Twigg.

Nottingham Forest (4-4-2): Ward; Louis-Jean, Dawson, Walker, Brennan; Prutton, Scimeca, Jess (Lester, 89), Bopp (Williams, h-t); Harewood, Johnson. Substitutes not used: Roche (gk), Doig, Hjelde.

Referee: E Wolstenholme (Blackburn).

Bookings: Derby: Evatt. Forest: Harewood.

Man of the match: Scimeca.

Attendance: 30,547.