Report: Dale 4 Shrews 0

Law of averages for a start. Dale went into this game on the back of a five match winning run, and we can't win every game obviously. I've seen a couple of these over the years, but I don't think I've ever seen us make it to six games of victory in succession before now. It's got to stop somewhere.

And what better to put us in our place than the return of a former manager. Paul Simpson coming back to the place where he celebrated promotion with a Carlisle side would have been just the man to see the form book ripped up, and see his play off chasing side sneak something at the home of the top of the table side.

To top it all, the weather. Every game that I remember needing the work of supporter volunteers to get the pitch into a playable condition has always resulted in disappointment, prompting suggestions of why we even bothered. Of course, whilst others were busy doing their bit, I was warmly tucked up with my babysitting get out clause ready to be used.

With such an away victory guaranteed, there was only one thing to do, and that was to take advantage of the rather generous odds of almost 4-1 on a Shrewsbury victory (generous in light of everything written above), with a cheeky fiver placed upon Simpson's Salop.

Of course, this proved to be the best fiver spent all day, and let it be said only done to counter every argument placed above. There are many rules within football, but the rule of having on money on something acts as a trump card on every other argument known to man.

Anyway, back to reality, and it had been a day spent worrying about whether the game would go ahead. From checking the temperature before going to bed on the Friday night, to jumping out of bed Saturday morning (briefly) to peek at my car windscreen from my bedroom window. Such sacrifices wouldn't be taking place had we been lurking around the mid table zone.

And even all day Saturday was spent almost anticipating the worst possible news coming through. As game by game in League Two started falling foul to the weather, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before ours went the same way. When your used to being the first name to be accompanied by a P, it's a habit that's difficult to shake off.

Once inside a perishing Spotland, thoughts turned towards whether the game would last till 4:50pm. The weather looked to have cosmetically affected the pitch. It didn't look great from afar but every one of the volunteers I spoke to assured me that the pitch was actually in great shape.

Amongst the crowd were a group of Barnet supporters, who decided to take in our game given their own postponement at Accrington. Somewhat ironic given the number of potential fixtures they've tried to come and see at Spotland over the past few years.

As for the game, well I think I could just copy and paste key phrases from the last few match reports. There was a massive gulf in class between the two sides, and right from the opening kick off, Shrewsbury were merely chasing shadows.

We were too fast for them, too incisive, too confident, too intelligent, too inventive, too too too too too too ........ the list of "too" could go on and on, as were head and shoulders above the opposition in every department.

There must come a point where we'll ask ourselves just how good weactually are. We are currently hammering sides week in, week out with the scoreline often flattering the opposition (as it did today), and then remarking how we never got out of first gear.

We certainly got out of first gear today, as arguably we had a little more hunger about our play at times. I detected a willingness to kill a side off, almost bloodthirsty the way we played at times, but still I was left thinking that we could easily have stepped it up another notch or two had we needed to.

One thing which was clear right from the first whistle was that the pitch was having no effect on the game whatsoever. Any excuses that Shrewsbury could have trotted out were dismissed before they were even put forward. We gave them a perfect lesson in how to play football, and any difficult areas that may have been on the pitch were no hindrance in the fast flowing passing football that we now accept as being the norm.

And so within the opening ten minutes, it was game over.

If you really wanted to go picking holes in Keith Hill's time at manager, our ability from set pieces has never been quite as good as we might have wanted it to be. Or we have loads of bloody corners, but never do anything with them. Not any more.

Craig Dawson's emergence at the back has been a huge benefit to the side, becoming an absolute rock alongside Nathan Stanton. But his ability at set pieces is like finding out your stunning Swedish girlfriend happens to be a dab hand at making full English breakfasts in the morning after.

A Kennedy corner came over, got a nudge from Joe Thompson I think it was, before landing between Dawson and a defender. With all the prowess of a seasoned striker, Dawson rifled it home. This is the stuff of dreams for the lad who was stood on the terraces eighteen months ago as an 18 year old Dale fan. Get him on the plane Fabio!

At this point, the biggest threat that we faced, aside from dropping temperatures that had already frozen all the water pipes connecting the Sandy Lane end of the ground, was complacency. It was that easy, it was like a training exercise as we knocked it about for fun. The closest that the Shrews came to a shot on target saw the ball go out for a throw in.

Those concerns of whether the game would survive the afternoon grew bigger midway through the second half, when the referee held the game up before approaching the benches. Thankfully it transpired he wanted a change of ball colour due to the falling snow, and the game continued in much the same manner.

With around five minutes of the half to go, we made it two. Chris Dagnall got all the space in the world down the left and cut the ball back to Chris O'Grady on the edge of the box. COG tapped it up for himself before volleying it into the far corner. The Shrews keeper's attempts to get to the shot did him few favours.

Half time should have seen Simpson insist that his players wear trainers for the second half, in the vain hope that the players would slide all over the place and attracted a pitying abandonment from the referee. It would have been the only way they'd have got anything from this game. They were dead and buried with 45 minutes still to go.

But there was some relief felt when the players emerged for the second half, as any lingering doubts about whether the game would finish were finally extinguished. We'd seen a half unaffected by the conditions and it would have took something from the Day After Tomorrow to have called it off at this stage.

Five minutes into the second half, the modest victory started taking on the appearance of a hammering as we scored our third goal.

Now we on this website are massive fans of Craig Dawson, and there's nothing finer than seeing a Rochdale lad scoring for us, but if we're being very, very honest, Craig Dawson did not score our third goal.

Fair enough, he did all the hard work, and as that ball nestled into the back of the net, he probably thought he was the scorer - he certainly deserved it for his efforts, but as he powerfully headed TK's corner goalwards, it almost immediately took a deflection off Chris O'Grady before settling beyond former Dale keeper David Button. O'Grady had little say in it, but it was COG's goal I'm afraid.

The fourth goal came following a a TK free kick. It was struck low to Button's right and the on loan Spurs man saved well, but lightening reactions by O'Grady saw him immediately knock it into the net to seal yet another emphatic victory for Dale.

Are we allowed to call that a hat trick for Chris O'Grady? And if not, why not? Makes him equal top scorer with Dagnall for the season - not bad for a striker that Keith Hill once described as "not the type who will score a lot of goals". Yes Keith, what do you know?

We were pretty much in the territory now where had we needed to get double figures, you wouldn't bet against us doing so. We were tearing the shrews to shreds, and they weren't having a look in.

Even Scott Wiseman, buoyed on by a goal in his last home appearance, fancied a repeat performance. He went on a run which went on and on, beating player after player. He must have been conscious that eventually it was going to end with needing to shoot using his left foot. And so it was, but it wasn't that bad an effort in the end.

And at 4:32pm, with snow continuing to fall on the Spotland pitch, something very weird happened. Shrewsbury had a shot on goal. Fair enough, it was straight at the keeper and was tamer than a new born bunny, but it was enough to earn ovations from all four sides of the ground as it was the first time that they'd managed to do so. They followed that up with another attack but their striker failed to keep up with the ball and it ended up with a comfortable collection for Heaton.

We made a couple of subs in the last quarter of an hour, with Higgy coming on for Joe Thompson, and Glover for O'Grady. Higgy played well as an individual, but perhaps Thompson's withdrawal lost us a bit of balance as a side, and any further goals for ourselves would only have been wonder goals that we'd dribbled past about 73 different opponents to finish.

So we had to settle for 4-0, which as we said slightly flattered Shrewsbury who didn't compete at any stage during the afternoon. They looked like a side who had become as reliant on Holt as we were, and they had an air of a side who just didn't fancy it this afternoon.

Perhaps that is doing us a disservice, as we can't keep saying week in week out how poor the opposition are. We are making them look poor, but there could have been no positives for Simpson from this game, and he had a look of dead man walking as he blanked his side before shaking the hand of the referee and applauding the travelling supporters at the final whistle.

It will not have gone unnoticed in the Shrewsbury boardroom that the hammered side carry a significantly higher wage budget. And we had to sell our top scorer at the start of the season too before that excuse is used.

The only frowns came when the attendance of just under 3,000 (ignore the PA figure which is incorrect). Of course, it's not good enough for a top of the table side but perfectly understandably. In the old days, supporters were given better value for money, as for ninety minutes there was that "will we win, will we not" feeling. Today that lasted for just eight minutes, at which point it became "how many". Rip off Britain if we can't even get a full ten minutes of uncertainty about the final result.

The victory gives us a seven point lead at the top of the division and further reinforces the belief that this is the finest hour in our 102 year history. I doubt any supporter has seen us consistently outclass the opposition as we are doing right now.

To put this season into context. In 1982, 46 points at the end of the season. In 1984, no one died 46 points at the end of the season. And here we are after just 22 games sat pretty at the top of the table with 47 points. We are on the verge of making history, and to be honest, I'm scared of missing another second of it throughout the rest of the season. Christmas has simply become something to get out of the way before Crewe (a).