Rochdale ran out winners in their first action since March with a comfortable 4-1 win over Atherton Collieries in the first pre-season friendly.
The game was available to stream on the Atherton website with fans obviously being unable to make the trip over to Wigan and so it was either the live stream, or like me, refreshing twitter every couple of minutes.
Noticeable absentees were Eoghan O'Connell, Stephen Dooley, Joe Dunne and Brad Wade.
The first half saw saw Rochdale line up with Jay Lynch in goal, Harrison Hopper at right back, trialist Caleb Richards at left back with Paul McShane and Jim McNulty at centre back. In midfield were Lewis Bradley, Jimmy Ryan and 1st year scholar Kacper Mialkowski while Matty Done lined up with new signing Alex Newby and Keaton Mulvey up front.
Alex Newby took just two minutes to get his first Dale goal to put us 1-0 and that was quickly followed by a Jimmy Ryan strike past former Dale keeper Danny Taberner into the top corner from 25 yards out as Dale were 2-0 up within the first 8 minutes.
With less than 10 minutes gone it was 2-1 after Harrison Hopper conceded a penalty which was converted by Atherton's Elliot Rokka.
Summer signing Alex Newby added his second goal on 18 minutes to make it 3-1 to Rochdale after good link up play between him and Matty Done.
Dale had opportunities to extend the lead but couldn't take them and they led 3-1 at the half time break.
The team for the second half was Lynch in goal, the released, then re-signed Ryan McLaughlin at right back, Caleb Richards stayed at left back with Aaron Morley and Jimmy Keohane had to line up at centre half due to Eoghan O'Connell not being in the squad. A midfield three of Matty Lund, Harrison Hopper and 1st year scholar Ethan Brierley. We lined up with a front three of Ollie Rathbone, Fabio Tavares and Kwadwo Baah.
Only one further goal to come in the second half as Tavares was brought down for a Dale penalty which Aaron Morley converted to make it 4-1 to Rochdale.
As you can see by the line-ups for Dale, there's a big mix of academy and youngsters in our squad and with BBM coming out and saying he needs 5-6 more players this window, those line ups should hopefully get stronger as the weeks move forward.
Dale take on Stockport County on Saturday live on Stockport's Youtube channel.