So how did Keith Hill get us out of this crisis period where we've gone on a losing streak totalling one game on the trot? Easy. We get ourselves a brand new scarf.

By our standards, we actually had widespread changes from Monday's side. Widespread changes being two. Knocks from Gigg Lane saw Thompson and Jason Kennedy ruled out, with a first start for Temitope Obadeyi and a 387th start for Gary Jones.

Crewe came under the continued stewardship of Dario Gradi who seems to have been at Crewe forever. In fact, looking at the Dale starting line up, there was only Gary Jones and Nathan Stanton who were even alive when Dario Gradi first took charge of Crewe Alexandra.

When we played Crewe back on Boxing Day, comments from the Gaffer suggested that we'd produced our "B+ game" in a match which required a "Grade A performance". Today was very different, and if we're continuing in the manager's exam talk, then we'd passed this one pretty much just by writing our name at the top of the exam paper.

It wasn't so much that it was an easy game, because it wasn't, but goals at the start of both halves made this a very comfortable victory that was never in doubt at any stages during the afternoon.

Of course, we were given a huge boost in the opening couple of minutes of the game when Calvin Zola was forced out of the game. Zola was a real threat in the Boxing Day encounter between the two sides, but with a rather innocuous attempt to challenge on a Tom Kennedy clearance, he looked to have pulled his hamstring.

We had the game's first real chance, when a cross from the Main Stand side of the pitch saw Obadeyi leave his marker motionless, but his powerful header was just a little too high to trouble Phillips in the Crewe goal.

And then things went rather perfectly for us. After all that was said and wrote over the past five days over O'Grady's miss at Gigg Lane, everyone would have been in agreement that the perfect start would have been for Dale to take the lead through Chris O'Grady.

Cue the perfect start.

O'Grady launched the attack, feeding in Chris Dagnall who all but scored himself. He scampered his way through the Crewe backline as only Dagnall can, before finishing from a tight angle. The bad news was that Crewe defender Matt Tootle produced a fantastic goal line clearance. The good news it went straight to Chris O'Grady.

Now let it be said, there was plenty of work for O'Grady still to do. He was far from just picking up the pieces on this one. He tapped the rebound up in the air before volleying home through a crowd of bodies. 1-0 to Dale and any ghosts lingering from Monday evening had been well and truly ghostbusted.

The goal from Dale made the game a very open encounter, and it was somewhat surprising that there were no more goals in the quarter of an hour which followed. From an attacking point of view, we looked to be scaring the life out of Crewe with Dagnall and O'Grady showing why they are the best partnership in the division. At times, the Crewe defence were hanging on for dear life.

Aside from that, Crewe were starting to win the midfield battle, and they launched a few attacks of their own from this point on, and with a fully fit Zola amongst their armoury, then they may have been better equipped to take advantage of it.

They came close with one effort that saw the ball whistle wide of the post from a volley into the awaiting WMG stand (or whatever its called these days), and the whole of Spotland held its collective breath when a Craig Dawson challenge on Alex striker Byron Moore looked to have given the visitors a penalty.

It looked nailed on to everybody, apart from the referee who was adamant that there'd been a touch from Dawson, indicating this almost forcefully to Moore. A sigh of relief and Dawson's amazing record of being an ever present central defender and not picking up a single card continues.

The Crewe defence were continuing to have headaches of their own - literally in one case, after Harry Worley made a succession of headed clearances the latter of which seemed to take him out.

It seemed a matter of time before we'd have increased our lead, such was the space that we were finding against a backline which just couldn't cope with our pace and inventiveness. O'Grady came close to doubling his tally with an headed effort late in the half, but he saw it cleared off the line.

Half time came and went, with the unusual sight of Rory McArdle back out warming up. McArdle had come on late in the first half for Nathan Stanton, and whilst its commonplace these days to see goalkeepers coming out early for a warm up routine, you don't see it many times with outfield players.

But McArdle wasn't the defender that should have been out warming up, as it was Alex defender Matt Tootle who had the defining moment of the second half. In the opening sixty seconds of the second half starting, Chris O'Grady put in a hopeful cross into a box devoid of blue shirted players.

Fortunately for us, Alex defender Tootle had his goalscoring boots on and with not a soul within ten yards of him - in fact, the nearest Dale shirt to him was sat in the WMG - he stumbled the ball into the back of the net with no pressure at all to double our advantage and to seal the game.

That evil streak that lurks within me from time to time hopes that someone in the WMG screamed out "Man on" as the ball arrived as his feet and influenced the own goal, and no doubt Tootle would hope for such a get out clause himself. But it was just one of those ridiculous own goals and will be featuring on whatever Z list celebrity puts out a Own Goals and Gaffes DVD this Christmas.

The downside of that goal was that it pretty much killed off the game as a contest, which is great when you're deep into a Title chase, but from an entertainment point of view, it put a dampener on my Saturday afternoon. What a fussy lot we've become!

It did take a while for the game to recover from that goal. There wasn't even a "what if....." mentality from either side, such was the confirmation of the victory with forty minutes or so to go. I don't want to use the phrase going through the motions because that'd be unfair to both sides, and it wasn't like that at all, but any urgency from the game had certainly vanished as temperatures plummeted throughout the second half.

In a rare Crewe second half attack, a cross to the box saw Frank Fielding successfully punch the ball clear, but in the process, he floored a red shirted opponent who was seeing stars for a few seconds after the challenge. Obviously, nothing wrong with what Fielding did, but it has to be said from this onwards, no Crewe player went anywhere close to Frank when the ball got crossed in for the remainder of the game.

Higgy came on to replace Abadeyi, wearing a kit that looked more suitable for someone playing Rugby League, as it dwarfed the former Oldham striker and it was Higginbotham's introduction that gave Alex something else to think about.

He came close to scoring an absolute screamer. From out of almost nothing, he let fly from around thirty yards out that brought the very best out of the Alex keeper who had to go full length to tip it out for a corner.

As the game approached its climax, it opened up again with some excellent football from Dale. The passing football was accompanied by the now obligatory olés from the Spotland faithful, with some times 10, 15, 20 passes accompanying our moves. Total football was the order of the day, and a Will Atkinson header came close to finishing something that could have been classed as the perfect team goal.

There were more chances in the final few minutes, but the Alex were beaten a long time before Steve Rushton put them out of their misery with the final whistle to give Dale their eighteenth win of the season, extending the lead at the top to six points. Amazing what a new scarf can do.

 It's two weeks before Dale next play a game due to Notts County's FA Cup commitments, and its mathematically possible for us to be knocked off our perch before we next kick a ball in anger, which will no doubt cause the odd minor heart attack in messageboard land, but we can sleep well at night knowing that how anybody else does is irrelevant as long as this Dale side keeps producing professional, efficient, attractive and match winning performances. Happy days indeed.