Well it didn't go according to plan. Obviously. The plan had it that we'd have beaten Morecambe to set up a top of the table clash against Brentford at the weekend, but a 92nd minute equaliser as Morecambe chucked everything up front proved to be the spanner in the works.

It was very much a head scratching game. Not that I've just received a dose of nits or something, but there were so many aspects of this game that I struggled to understand. First of all, I wasn't sure how we didn't win this comfortably as on two separate occasions I was up celebrating goals that didn't even cross the line - something that I'm guilty of perhaps once a season at the very most.

Also, I could never quite work out who was playing up front. We seemed to be playing this bizarre four man attack as our front two and wingers interchanged at will . In fact at times, it reminded me of the old school yard football of everyone attacking when we've got the ball, and everyone defending when we've not.

And if I'm being critical, it seemed odd that Lee McEvilly wasn't the sub of choice for the last five minutes against a strong Morecambe side, especially after he ran the show in injury time at Macclesfield at the weekend.

But that deep breath requested earlier is a necessary one. The disappointed faces that trooped out of Spotland, with a million and one post mortems taking place were only disappointed because of where this team has put us, and had it been a mid table Dale side killing time before the end of the season conceding late on, then it would have just seen the odd tut and mutterings of "typical Dale" under the breath - nothing more than that.

No one is ever disappointed when Razorlight release yet another turgid dross masquerading as a single, but there were tears shed if a Roses b-side didn't touch the genius of "Where Angels Play". Success comes at a price.

Anyway, the game.

A larger than normal crowd descended on Spotland, with everyone under the age of 21 reaching for the old school tie and the clippercards to take advantage of the kids for a quid scheme with over 3000 home fans for the first time in a while.

Stanton was out with an injury picked up since the win at Macc, so a slightly slimmer than normal Simon Ramsden deputised in the middle, with an otherwise unchanged starting eleven and Lee Thorpe taking Ramsden's spot on the bench.

We started well. In fact, we started brilliantly. As mentioned before, we seemed to play with this interchangeable attacking line up. The intention was yet again to football the opposition to death and hope that enough chances came our way to batter them into submission.

But perhaps a little like the game at Macc at the weekend, we struggled a little to convert all the fancy football into chances. Our attacking play led to corner after corner, but you'd be pushed to find a real save to be made by the Morecambe keeper (not related to Paddy) Roche.

Eventually, all the fancy football paid off. Or so we thought. Chris Dagnall interchanged a couple of passes before his low drive beat the Morecambe keeper Roche, rebounding off the post into the back of the net. Cue much celebrations before realising that the game was still in play and it had in fact come back into play.

As the half went on, Morecambe showed they weren't just at Spotland to make up the numbers. They were a million times better than Macc were at the weekend, and they looked to push forward when they could but found a resolute Dale defence keeping them out.

The second half followed a very similar pattern to the first, with Dale starting like they wanted to kill the game off in the opening few minutes of the game. And we very nearly did that. Whilst someone within earshot remarked about their being no cutting edge to our play, we took the lead.

A cross from the right hand side met the head of Joe Thompson, landing perfectly at the feet of Will Buckley. He steadied, turned his defender and fired the ball into the far corner. 1-0 to Dale which put us second in the table. (30 seconds later at a ground far, far away, Wycombe took the lead against D&R to put themselves second - it was good whilst it lasted).

The lead was halfway to being job done, and the hope was that the nice pretty football would find more gaps as Morecambe tried to steal something from the game. Despite false reports of Dale sitting back on the lead, Dale went for the killer second.

Ciaran Toner was the first to come close, after his run from deep just seemed to open up for him and his low drive proved to be too tricky for Roche at the first attempt.

And for the second time of the evening, I was airborn celebrating a phantom goal. Joe Thompson produced the pass of the season to put Nicky Adams in the clear and his cross was met by Lee Thorpe who turned it goalwards. Somehow, Roche got a hand on it, gathering at the second attempt. And following that Jonah came close to getting on the end of a cross but ended up just short.

But then a shift happened, with the introduction of former Dale loanee and arm breaker Rene Howe. He came on as a sub for Morecambe and added a different dimension to their attack, and just gave us something else to think about.

I don't know whether it was Howe that brought a panic to our play or the reality of the business end of the season brought a bout of nerves to our play, but there was a late push from the visitors which ultimately saw them grab an equaliser.

There'd been warning shots, with Howe appealing for a penalty before squaring up to Wiseman, and then possibly the tackle of the season, and Gary Jones launched himself to take the ball off Howe's toe as he turned to shoot from close range.

But with the board having just gone up to indicate three minutes of injury time, a Morecambe corner saw Roche sent forward to add confusion to the proceedings. The initial cross looked to have been dealt with, and whilst I swear I heard shouts of "shoot" from Dale supporters as we looked to deal with the ball inside our own penalty box.

It was headed back in, for striker Twiss to finish with ease as we looked despondently towards the linesman for the sort of gift you hope from a cash machine paying out double. It was not to be, and most of the Morecambe players celebrated in a big pile on, whilst one of their big fat bald players booted the ball away to waste time rather than seek out a potential winner.

The final whistle was greeted by some brief boos around the ground which could only have been frustration rather than genuine dissatisfaction at what they had seen as the overall performance was a good one, just not one in which we'd killed off the opposition to secure the win.

And that failure to win against an in form Morecambe left us in that horribly depressing position of four points off top of the table with a game in hand. The Samaritans will need extra staff on call tonight. Luton can still catch us if results don't go our way.