But for 120 minutes on Tuesday evening, this side with its so called useless keeper, defence and midfield, came so very close to putting Dale into the 3rd Round of the League Cup for the first time since we made the final back in 1962.

And it would have been deservedly so, because we were pretty special during this game. Ok fair enough, not special enough to have won the game outright, but enough for the penalty shoot out defeat to not matter one bit, as the players were applauded off the pitch and fans trooped away from Spotland with heads held high and proud of the effort that had been put in to this game.

We reverted to type for this game. The wingers were back with Perkins suspended, and Peterborough had somewhat unusually allowed Guy Branston to play in the Cup game. And in true revolutionary style, we went at them from the kick off.

There were a couple of well known faces in the Norwich side. Dion Dublin spearheaded their forward line, whilst former City striker Darren Huckerby was stuck out on the left wing. And they had former Utd player Luke Chadwick on the bench who must have undergone plastic surgery since his days as a Chaff Idol.

We edged the first half. Actually, that's not quite true. We were the better side throughout the first half, and by the time we'd took the lead in the tenth minute, we'd already had 2 or 3 half chances, so it was hardly a surprise when Murray fired us into the lead.

Dagnall had played the ball through to Murray who was in full stretch, but he couldn't quite get there. Fortunately for us, the Norwich player called Murray decided to help out the Rochdale player called Murray, and as their Murray tried to slide the ball back to keeper Marshall, it proved to be all that was required to set up Glenn Murray who fired past Marshall to give Dale the lead.

So at this point, we were expecting to sit back and watch Norwich finally wake up. You could be forgiven for thinking that we'd scored too early in the game, and we'd have been better off taking the lead in the 119th minutes as all it would do would provoke this Norwich side into action.

But it didn't happen, and that Keith Hill masterplan of playing rubbish at Hereford whilst the Norwich scouts were in attendance seemed to have done the job. We were playing really well, with a number of players having their best displays of the season, notably Ben Muirhead who was performing like he was the headline act.

The start of the second half saw everything change. Norwich came out all fired up and for about twenty minutes, they looked exactly like the Championship side that they are supposed to be. In fact, in this period of the game, they could have killed it off.

I don't know what was said to them in the dressing room, and on the basis of their first half showing, I'm sure its words which can't be repeated on here, but whatever it was, it worked, and it was hardly a surprise when they equalised just five minutes or so.

And it was the old warhorse Dion Dublin who got the goal. He's getting on a bit now, and it shows his age that I can remember him playing for Cambridge at Spotland and squaring up to Shaun Reid after Reidy had floored his team mate which seems at least a couple of generations ago. But hey, time flies when you're having fun stuck in the same old division for eternity.

The goal came from a free kick on the Willbutts Lane side of the ground, as the Canaries attacked towards the Pearl Street end. The ball came over, and Dublin produced a rather bizarre way of scoring, as he fired it well out of Spencer's reach and into the corner of the goal, much to the disgust of Spencer who'd overdosed on his bravery pills and started laying into Doolan for not sticking with his man.

But the expected onslaught from our visitors and the heads dropping from ourselves just did not happen. City continued to press and they threatened on a couple of occasions, but Spencer held strong at the back, and this proved to be their only real spell of domination in the entire game. And like with the Stoke game, we simply saw it out and it was almost as if it was our superior fitness was the difference between the sides.

There were calls for Norwich's aging defender Gary Doherty to be sent off when he pulled back Chris Dagnall during the second half. To be fair to the referee, Doherty wasn't the last man so it would have been difficult under the laws of the game to produce a red, but it was a highly cynical pull back which was as professional a foul as you see. It wasn't dangerous but it was one without the slightest attempt to get anywhere near the ball. They call it cheating. Unless its one of your side doing it, when its a "good foul to give away".

There were few out and out chances during the remainder of the second half, but as the game finished, it was certainly Dale who were having the better of things, and this was to continue throughout extra time.

Dale continued to take the game to the opposition, and Glenn Murray had a great chance to repeat his first half effort, almost from an identical position. Dagnall had again threaded him through, but this time he found Marshall too big an object to steer the ball round, and the former Celtic keeper saved well.

Kennedy was next up to threaten the goal. He had a long range effort which looked for all the world that it would have ended up threatening the windscreens on Sandy Lane rather than the goal itself, but it kept low and it took another fine save from Marshall to keep it out.

I'll be honest and say that on the basis of pre-season, I had doubts about Kennedy. He looked to be caught out of position regularly and was given a torrid time by non league wingers. Since that opening day, he's been our best and most consistent player, and on the evidence we've seen so far, Alan Goodall going to Luton has been a very good thing for Rochdale Football Club.

And with seconds ticking away in the second period of injury time, for anyone old enough to have made that long trip to Crystal Palace back in 1990, we had what I would call a Peter Ward moment. In fact, we had two within seconds.

We were camped in the Norwich half, and a wonderful Prendergast cross landed at the back post side of the goal, with Dagnall and Muirhead present. Muirhead must have been about a yard out and a practically open goal in front of him, and he put it over. It wasn't the easiest of chances to finish the ball as he had to take it on the full volley, but it was one which no doubt will have gone through his mind over and over after the game.

Then just whilst we were resigning ourselves to that being our chance and penalties were an inevitability, we had another glorious opportunity to finish things off. Alfie, who had come off the bench for the understandably tiring Glenn Murray, linked up really well setting up Dagnall. It was a chance that you'd expect Dagnall to finish 7 or 8 times out of 10. This wasn't one of the 7 or 8, and the ball crept wide

And so came the penalties. It looked pretty clear to me that Norwich have spent a long time practising their penalties. There was a common theme to all of them to keep them below three yards, and it proved to be successful. Spencer didn't have a chance with any of them, and Prendergast and Jones saw their penalties saved by the Norwich keeper Marshall.

Prendergast and Jones can feel no shame, as both penalties were on target and lets face it, they were up against a keeper who has saved a penalty by Ronaldihno, though I'm sure his saves from this game will be the first ones he tells the grand kids about.

Disappointed we may well have felt after Jones' penalty was saved by Marshall, but that belief was back at Spotland and it must be used as a spring board to kick start out season this weekend. It'll all mean nothing, if we can't reproduce this on Saturday afternoon. We're out, but we're smiling again.

Positives..... this was the Dale that we all fell back in love with last season. Sharp, fast, flowing, attacking football and it's difficult to live with us when we play like this. A Championship side were holding on for long periods

Negatives.... a crowd of less than 3000 for a game like this, with its associated history is dreadful, especially when you consider that Norwich brought a much higher following than what you might have expected.