Changes were the order of the day in the Dale side. Dagnall was brought back in place of the now departed Jordan Rhodes, Joe Thompson was given a first league start of the season ahead of Will Buckley and Scott Wiseman was given the nod at right back ahead of Marcus Holness who had to make do with a spot on the bench.

Wearing our yellow away kit of last season for seemingly no reason whatsoever unless the terms of the Nike deal now insist on a new kit for every single game, Dale were roared on by just under a thousand fans braving the wintry weather, the car park potholes and the risk of the longest turnstile queues this side of the Deva Stadium.

First half was a good half from our own point of view. The new footballing buzz word seems to be about playing ugly, and it wouldn't have been an unfair comment to chuck our way. Don't get me wrong, we hadn't transformed ourselves into a side looking like John Beck had been given the managerial hotseat, but we seemed to be a bit more practical about our play.

And it worked for us, as we comfortably ran the show in the first half. It might not have been as free flowing football as it could have been (though the slippy pitch and conditions would have to take some of the blame for that), but we were certainly in control of the game, providing a number of chances at the right end.

Tom Kennedy had our first proper effort of the game. He took a free kick which seemed like it was only in shooting territory if your surname was O'Shaunessy. Nevertheless, he had a crack catching the one man wall before spiralling narrowly past the Morecambe keeper's post.

But the deserved goal came. Joe Thompson followed a deep cross from the left hand side and dinked it over the keeper's head. And just for good measure, as the ball was set to cross the line, Dagnall came in to steal the goal off JT by hammering the ball over the line from three inches out. Insert Scouse stereotype gag here.

It seemed a little harsh for Dagnall to "do a Nugent" and grab the goalscoring glory off Thompson, but when the day comes that a striker doesn't want to be the goalscorer then it'll be time to drop him.

And it was the Morecambe keeper Roche who kept his side in the contest with a stunning triple save. Jonah had forced the first save before a couple of efforts from Lee Thorpe. A second goal seemed an inevitability at this time. How we were wishing it had been Paddy Roche and not his namesake Barry in between the sticks at this point.

Half time came and went. This week's ridiculous half time competition involved a tannoyman who seemingly knew every Morecambe supporter by name invite someone out of the crowd to find a key which opens a box. A bit like "Deal or No Deal" where you can't always open the box. After our own half time draw, and last week's "Win a door" shenanigans at Lincoln, I am now completely convinced the Football League are running an internal competition to see who can come out with the worst idea possible.

General consensus at half time was that we were doing well, and we were a little unfortunate not to have increased our lead beyond the slender one goal lead that we had. It hadn't come across as being slender, such was our dominance and given that we'd limited the home side to only one effort which came close to resembling a chance, there didn't seem to be the same fear that we'd concede like we've done so easily this season.

So of course, we shouldn't have been surprised at all to see the Shrimps level things up within the opening couple of minutes of the second half starting. Without wanting to sound overly mathematical, but we're conceding a very high percentage of the chances that we are offering the opposition, and this was as frustrating as any of the others have been given how easy we made it for our opponents. A cross came over and was met by Morecambe's teenage striker Taylor who was completely unmarked allowing him to head home with ease.

And that goal just seemed to deflate everything. Morecambe didn't see it as an opportunity to go on and win the game, and we just seemed to adopt a "here we go again" attitude as if we could see the writing on the wall.

We had opportunities to regain our lead, but we perhaps didn't play with the same urgency that we had at Lincoln to win the game. Perhaps understandable given the length of the game still to play, but we just didn't seem the same after. To describe us as "going through the motions" would be wrong, and unfair as there was no lack of effort, but it was as if we didn't really believe that we'd have it in us to go one and win the game despite long periods pressing the Morecambe defence.

Will Buckley came on for Rundle and did his best to conjure something up. He again proved himself to be the luckiest footballer in the world, as the ball always seems to ricochet off him into the best possible position. He tried to add to his tally of won penalties, but despite the best efforts of those in the away end, the shout was rightly turned down by the referee.

Alfie came close after a deflected shot suddenly became a better and better chance as it looped down towards the cross bar. It initially looked like easy pickings for Roche, but in the end, he was forced into making a good save and tipping it over for a what must have been our 47th corner of the game.

But you know what we're like at corners.

So we had to settle for a point. Trooping out of the away terrace, "two points dropped" must have been muttered around 937 times. Perhaps the Play Off hangover that gets banded about season after season is the insistence to compare everything with the previous season. It's inevitable that will happen, as we're hardly going to compare this season with Graham Barrow's 97-98 campaign.

Each passing game seems to make our spectacles even more rose coloured, as we look back at how things went right last season, whilst they're not doing this season, completely forgetting that this time last season, we were having exactly the same conversations about the season before. Murray's been found out, our central midfield duo aren't clicking, Jonah needs dropping, we're conceding too many goals, main striker out injured and we don't even know what a clean sheet looks like etc.

I hope we've not reached the stage yet where a point away from home is being viewed as a bad result. Yes, we're coming away from games with a viewpoint that we should have gained more, which is perhaps more than we could have argued for at this time last year, but surely that's an indication that we're playing better than the comparative time of the season.

Early days yet.