The match report for this game was planned. I was trying to work out how I could write a report which totally slagged off the referee without actually blaming him for today's defeat. It's a fine line, but one that had to be made.

Because we were dreadful. No idea why we were so poor, but we were shocking. Everything we were so encouraged by on Tuesday night had obviously followed the Norwich tractor back to East Anglia, and we had the worst bits from Hereford and Chester. And we did all of that and got three points in the process.

Such was the shocker that we had today, it was almost impossible to select a man of the match for this game. Yes, some players had spells where they performed well, but it was almost just to make up for earlier spells of nothingness.

And the ref had a shocker too. I couldn't believe the number of decisions that he got wrong. And it was wrong against us in 90% of the occasions. Though he did seem to turn down a blatant penalty for our visitors in the first half. It evened itself out throughout the rest of the match.

But, hey who cares? We can spend the next week doing post mortems, but we'll do them having secured our first win of the season and we'll all sleep a bit better this evening.

We went into the game with just the one change from Tuesday's game. Gary Jones was absent from the entire squad, with one rumour suggesting that he was off with his wife who was in labour. Imagine arranging that for mid season.

Anyways, right from the kick off, we were nowhere near the side we were on Tuesday evening. Despite fielding the side that most supporters would see as being out strongest available,  we might have been on an even level with the Dons for the first five minutes or so, but they were soon in the ascendancy.

We had one effort, but it wasn't one to worry ex Swansea keeper Willy Gueret as Dagnall's effort went well wide as he attempted to flick home a Rundle cross.

And the visitors took the lead, and it was hard to argue that they deserved it. They might not have forced chance after chance, but they were causing us issue after issue playing at a pace that we couldn't cope with.

The inevitable goal came from a LLoyd Dyer cross, who was without doubt the game's best player in the first half. His cross was met by an unmarked Kevin Gallen who had no trouble heading home from just a couple of yards out.

Make no mistake, MK Dons were on top and we can argue about how poorly we were playing, but they were playing very well indeed and you'd have thought they were the more likely of the two sides to have scored again.

But out of almost nothing, Dale equalised. The goal came from Dagnall who had done precious little up until this point. But hey, if we have to wait 25 minutes for a goal of this quality, then it is very much worth the wait.

Dagnall like much of the afternoon found most joy with the ball at his feet and running at the MK Dons defence. He did so again, and from about twenty five yards he opted to have a shot. It was a shot which hit the back of the net perfectly

But that goal seemed to be the only thing in the first half to put a smile on Dale fans' faces, other than when an injured Guy Branston decided to count the number of away supporters right in front of them. We reckon he reached ten based on his reactions.

We were back on level terms, but it was level terms which lasted second as MK Dons proved their superiority over us by regaining the lead within a minute. Again it was a case of the visitors' neat slick passing leaving us chasing shadows and it was the former England U-21 Gallen who scored again. The ball had pushed out wide to the completely unmarked Wright who had all the time in the world to give it Gallen. Our chants didn't last very long.

And for the remainder of the half, we were struggling to stay in the contest. Had it not been for a superb goal line block by McArdle we could have been out of sight before the end of the first stanza with a number of MK Dons causing us problems at the back and nothing really clicking for us in the other half of the game.

You got the feeling that words were being said in the Dale dressing room, as even the subs weren't allowed out to warm up for the best part of the break. It made little difference because when we came out for the second half it was business as usual for our guests, who continued to dominate.

In fact, they came close to putting the game to bed on a couple of occasions. They were granted space all over the shop and we were just ineffective at everything we tried to do. The midfield did alright in a reacting to MK sort of way but we weren't dictating the play like a home team should do.

The wingers who were dropped for last Saturday's game were either exhausted from Tuesday or resting on their laurels, as neither had any real impact throughout. Muirhead who looked back to his best on Tuesday was spending most of the game looking out of sorts.

Subs were made, but it made precious little difference to proceedings. Alfie came on for a tired looking Murray and Prendergast replaced Rundle.

As the half wore on, it was looking worse and worse for Dale. Or wuss and wuss as Hansen would say. We were holding on and had it not been for further goal line clearances from McArdle and Ramsden, then the Dons would have been declaring at around 4:30.

And if weren't getting agitated by our own lack of style, we had the officials to cope with. Clearly the referee had an absolute nightmare. Complete lack of consistency with the bookings, and I even felt at one point that he booked one Dons player five minutes after his challenge on Alfie to indicate that he wasn't being one sided. The Prendergast foul was as wrong as wrong can be.

The linesman went a bit flag happy, but it's never easy to see from the Sandy Lane whether the decisions were right or not. It's never easy to see anything at all from there, but its been a long while since I've seen so many main standers regularly on their feet howling abuse at the officials which is usually a good indicator.

And then everything changed.

In the last match report we talked about a Peter Ward moment, today we had a Rushden and Diamonds moment. For with minutes remaining, the cocky MK Dons fans who had clearly bought the "Penguin A-Z of Footy Songs" at the Services on the way up, decided to do some tweaking. "You're going down to the Conference....."

At which point the result was never in doubt.

Time was ticking out. I'd planned my sulking evening out to perfection. There was no green room reflection to be had, and hear over and over again why we didn't perform. It was to be straight home, get the report done and over with, and then do my best to forget that we even have a football club in this town for the next fortnight.

But then Alfie came along, picked up by bottom lip which was dangling at around my knees and got me smiling - something which was looking an almost impossibility seconds earlier.

Alfie went on the sort of run which had worked so well for Dagnall throughout the game and just let rip. It was a time standing still moment, as Gueret saved the twenty yard short and the ball looped upwards and upwards before just levitating in the air for about a minute.

It then started to come down and down, and every single person behind the goal was praying to every deity that they could think of to ensure that it dropped down just before the cross bar. Our paganistic faith was restored as eventually it dropped into the back of the net to give us a very undeserved share of the spoils. Or so we thought as we celebrated away.

And then in the week when a certain Ole Gunnar best known for his part in a Chafftastic Champions League comeback win retired from football, we did our own version. And it was that man Alfie again. He got hold of a Prendergast cross but saw his effort hit the wood work.

But with the Dale supporters still airborn from the Alfie shot, Dagnall proved himself to be the poacher and if I'm being honest, I've no idea how he finished. He might have headed it in, he might have kicked it in. He might have even scored using his breasts like Blair Sturrock once did. All I know is that the net bulged with the ball nestled nicely in the back of it, and every one decided to go a bit apeshit. (thirty seconds later I realised my six year old was somewhere in the middle of it. smiling).

And we could have added to it. A superb Alfie run saw him do the sensible thing and lay the ball off to Rentaghost who couldn't quite grab us a fourth but a fourth goal for Dale would probably have been a bit harsh on Milton Keynes.

So the post mortems were abandoned, victory was in the bag and the smiles were back on the faces. We've all heard the clichés about how its more important to be a lucky manager, and whilst the Hilly and Flicker show insist that nothing is down to luck, someone somewhere was smiling down on them today. After torturing us all for the previous hour and a half.

And what an important three points that was. With next week's game against Wrexham postponed, we could have found ourselves bottom of the table for the next fortnight with not a single thing we could do about it. We may even have travelled down to Barnet knowing that a win wouldn't be enough to get us off the bottom.

So we're out of jail, it was the smash and grab, it was a proper Dick Turpin act. Hands up who cares? Thought not....... We're up and running.