This was without doubt the most entertaining derby match in years. Derby games aren't supposed to be like this. They should be dour, cagey with very little skill on show. This was far from it, and you'll do well to see a better game at this level all season.

Bury came to Spotland with a 100% record. In fact, they'd won every single league game since our visit to Gigg Lane back in April, and with hopes high, it brought a larger than average way following with almost two thousand making the short distance to Spotland.

Uncharacteristically, we made a number of changes from our last game. I can't remember the last time we made three unforced changes from the previous game with Will Buckley, Scott Wiseman and Alfie all coming into the starting line up.

We started well. Well at least did for the first couple of minutes or so. We took the game to Bury and had them on the back foot. Unfortunately, it did only last for a couple of minutes until it went the same way that every home game against Bury seems to go.

Bury won a corner. They are an extremely difficult side to defend corners against. Sodje has arms everywhere, nipping about like he's on speed, Futcher is twice the size of any of our players, Morrell intent on standing on exactly the same blades of grass that Russell was, and Bishop trying to avoid getting his kit dirty. Anyway, with all that going on, confusion ruled and from the corner, it was punched into the back of the net by Sam Russell, and for the second home game on the trot, we were playing catch up.

Now if the visitors had anything about them, they could have put the game well out of our reach. They were very much dominant for the first half. They looked a long way from the side put together by Chris Casper that used to amuse us on a regular basis. They attacked with a purpose, and absolutely ran the show in the midfield.

If we're being critical of the Shakers, then they were guilty of being very much like we were at Bradford. They had all the possession, and had us on the back foot for long, long periods but couldn't convert that into shots on goal. They got into some fantastic areas, but were guilty of the wrong ball at the last moment. When they got it right, they found McArdle and Stanton in inspiring form.

We offered very little in the opposite direction. Keltie was almost marked out of the game and Jones only had glimpses of what he normally does. That said, he was the closest we came to scoring, but calling it "closest" probably makes it sound more of a chance than it actually was.

The second half saw us coming out well on top, and its no exaggeration to say that the play was predominantly in the Bury half as we attacked the Sandy Lane end of the ground.

But many of our moves broke down. Anything in the air was being handled with ease a Dagnall and Le Fondre surprisingly not being able to out jump Futcher and Sodje, and you got the feeling that it was going to be one of those days where Bury triumph at Spotland again.

And then something magical happened. Will Buckley who'd had a very quiet game up until this point suddenly became the best player on the pitch, causing havoc in the Bury defence. I'm not sure that even Keith Hill knows what Will Buckley's best position is, but what is clear is that the boy has bags of talent and he is a very awkward player to come up against. When he has the ball at his feet, it is extremely difficult to get the ball off him.

Buckley broke into the box and fell to the floor under a challenge from Sodje. From my position, it looked to be a weak penalty, not that I was complaining. Now this was possibly the first time we've had a penalty with Dagnall and Alfie on the pitch, and it was Dagnall who stepped up to take the spot kick. Was it a case of him getting the ball first or simply he was always number one penalty taker and just wasn't given the opportunity up until now?

Anyway, after much delays with the Bury keeper responsible for a touch of gamesmanship, Dagnall stepped up and saw his kick saved as he put it to the keeper's right.

If that hadn't been a blow to Dagnall's confidence, then seconds later he had another great chance where he chased a through ball and he dinked it over Brown only to see it go inches over the bar.

We were certainly in the ascendency at this stage, and had there been any doubt about the first penalty, there was none about the second as Futcher brought down Buckley in the box. With Dagnall off the pitch at this time, it was a tad unprofessional to see a couple of Dale players racing for the ball so that they could take it as if they were in the play ground. You'd have thought that this sort of thing was given as much care as everything else is by the management.

Alfie won his personal battle with Keltie to take the penalty, and it looked like the Bury keeper had done his homework by leaving a sizeable gap to his left which would be Alfie's preferred style of penalty. As it happened, Le Fondre produced quite possibly the worst penalty of his life as he hit the ball into the ground, and it bobbled on the way to the back of the net.

From that point on, it was simply a question of whether we could win the game, and ensure the referee didn't have a chance to even things up by giving Bury a penalty. One Bury player tried his best, but the referee would have been too busy laughing to have given the penalty, such was the strength of his appeal.

But as much as we huffed and we puffed, we couldn't finish them off, but in all honesty, either side winning would have been unfair as a draw was most definitely the fairest result. Not that we like to be fair.

So that's that. A very good game between two very good sides with the spoils shared equally, with a result that the majority of the fans would have taken before kick off. I say that's that, but we also enough controversy after the game for you to have forgotten that there was even a game in the first place. Don't you just love derby days.