If Dale manage to get to the final of this competition this season, then they must give the captaincy for the final to Mark Monington. The AWS is his very own tournament. Last season he got the golden goal winner against Halifax, and this season he got two goals in a previous round against Macclesfield. Surely it was not a surprise then, that when this game went to penalties, Mono was bound to get the winning kick.

To be honest, despite the exciting finish, was quite a dull sides between two teams who didn't really perform. Neither side looked capable of scoring in normal time, and penalties were always on the cards. Neither side were helped by the worst refereeing seen anywhere this season. The referee, a Mr Kirkby from Sheffield, gave nothing to Dale in normal time. Then in extra time, he denied Hull a clear penalty. He was completely incompetent and seemed to find the whole thing fairly amusing.

Dale went into the game with a number of changes from Saturday's win over Brighton. Dave Flitcroft was back from suspension, and there were recalls for Dave Bayliss who took over at left back, and Clive Platt who stepped in for the rested Tony Ellis.

The first half was a very poor encounter with very few chances for either side. Dale had plenty of possession but seemed to miss Jason Peake's killer passes. Time after time, they came up against a well organised defence and found themselves unable to break them down.

The second half saw no upturn in fortunes for either side. It was very much more of the same, but as the game progressed, Hull seemed able to find the gaps in the Dale defence with alarming regularity, and for quite a while Dale were under the cosh. Neil Edwards came to Dale's rescue when he tipped the ball over the bar. He seemed to hang in the air for ages before getting the vital touch.

Extra time managed to bring both sides out of their shells a little bit, but again it was Hull who looked the most likely side to score. They were denied what looked a certain penalty when Graeme Atkinson blocked the run of one attacker as he broke into the box. Amazingly, the referee waved play on.

Seconds later, Dale had another escape when Mono appeared to bring down one of the attackers, whilst being the last line of defence. Again the referee waved play on. Fair enough, he owed us a few from the ninety minutes, but he really wasn't up to the job.

Tony Ellis had Dale's best effort in the whole 120 minutes when he turned and curled the ball towards the top corner. Keeper Wilson got a touch which put the ball onto the top corner of the frame of the goal, when it looked like it would creep in.

The penalties were unusual in that every penalty that was taken was on target.

The first six penalties all went in with Ellis, Jones and Lancashire all on target for Dale. Up stepped Graeme Atkinson who saw his penalty save. With the advantage in Hull's corner, they blew it straight away when Edwards saved the crucial penalty to make it all square again. Chris Bettney scored next for Dale, but so did the next Hull player.

Up stepped Mark Monington to score the first sudden death penalty. Neil Edwards then came up trumps to save the penalty to put Dale through into the Northern Semi Finals.

Again, not the best performance, but in this competition, getting through was all that counted. Hull fans will think themselves very unlucky not to be the ones to progress.

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