Undoubtedly, if you'd have offered me a lucky 1-0 win before hand, I'd have took it. Offered me a 3-0 victory, I'd have even have been tempted to buy a round of drinks. Not that anyone would have wanted to have a drink with someone as miserable with this result as I was.

Being objective, my unhappiness must stem from the first half. We were shocking and it was simply down to the good fortune of playing a team like Notts County that meant that we weren't put to the sword.

It was probably around the forty minute mark before we even had anything close to what you might describe as being a shot. We weren't bad, bad, but it was more as if we were playing a much tighter style of football than what we normally do, almost as if were we were approaching the game like an away side.

Confidence must have played a part and with five goals conceded in the past couple of games costing us maximum points, it was probably understandable but we were clearly playing within ourselves and that gave much encouragement to a Notts County side who were famously labelled as being three years behind Dale earlier on in the season.

What was perhaps the biggest concern for me was the number of attacks for Dale which seemed to be the launch pad for County attacks. Even a foul throw getting awarded to Dale seemed to be far more effective for the visitors than it would have been had they been allowed the initial throw in.

The best chance of the first half came the way of County. In fairness, it was a fair distance away from me, but our defence seemed to completely fail to notice Delroy Facey standing unmarked in the box. Fortunately for Dale, Delroy Facey failed to notice Delroy Facey in the box and the ball seemed to bounce off him rather than him actually attempting any kind of shot.

As the half went on, bit by bit we started to get into the game. Things were helped when bright young thing Mike Edwards was forced off through injury, and right here, right now, things started falling into place.

We had a couple of good runs from Will Buckley, which almost came off for him but not quite, Joe Thompson was causing problems at the back for the Magpies including one very good ball threaded through for Dagnall, and Nicky Adams tried an ambitious lob from forty yards out. Ambitious was the best way of describing it as it probably landed further from the goal than it did to start with.

But the improvements continued to come. It might not have been Brazil 1982 style stuff, but there were chances in that final few minutes when we'd gone forty minutes without one.

And it had it stayed as that, with a fair few of the natives a little restless at 0-0 with half time approaching, it would have been a safe bet to assume there may have been one or two boos around the ground at the half time whistle. So it was a good job we went 1-0 up then as the final seconds ticked away.

Will Buckley was the man who got his name on the scoresheet, after his deflected shot ended up in the far corner past the County keeper Lillis, who's Dad once applied to be Dale manager many moons ago, and the players trooped off to an ovation from the home fans.

And that goal proved to be the winner. For apart from the odd goalmouth scramble in the second half, there never appeared to be any danger at all of the visitors coming from behind to get anything from this game like we had done at Meadow Lane earlier this season.

Things were better in the second half. We were clearly a little more relaxed than we had been in the first half, thanks to that Buckley goal, but you always got the feeling that a clean sheet in this game would have been worth ten goals at the other end. Fingers have clearly been pointed in the direction of the defence, albeit not necessarily from the dugout, and a point was needed to be made to a public reminiscing at our lack of clean sheets.

It almost went titans up at one point, as the ball bounced around our box with nobody having any control of the ball whatsoever. It could have landed anywhere, and the visitors had a poor shout for handball, though they'd have been better off arguing for a back pass as we nudged the ball back to Fielding for a brief moment of relaxation, much to the hilarity of one particular Dale player. This was County's Last Stand.

With the ball given to Wiseman, the former Darlington right back, who was undoubtedly our best player in this game, went on a run, with no one getting near him. His run went on and on, before he pushed it wide to sub Le Fondre sporting the brightest fog busting boots available to man.

Alfie whipped the ball into Dagnall, who had no problem in finishing from the middle of the box to give the scouse striker his first league goal since October. Game over.

Or at least it was as a contest, as both sides saw out time with that all important clean sheet taking priority for Dale, though that didn't prevent Le Fondre grabbing a third in injury time to give the scoreline a convincing look about it.

So 3-0 it finished, and any minor quibbles from me should rightly be ignored with the bigger picture seeing goals for all our strikers in this game, the clean sheet that was much discussed and the three points to keep us in the hunt at the right end of the division.

We may well have played much better and only drawn games, indeed we may even have played better and lost this season but at this the business end of the season its points rather than performances that will secure play offs / promotion / silverware. Three points will do very nicely thank you very much.