A tenth league goal of the season was enough to ensure that we beat Port Vale at a sun drenched Spotland. Full report now online.

If there's one thing we've learned from our time of watching Dale, it's to expect the unexpected. And we were given many a surprise before this game had even kicked off.

Surprise number one was the pitch looking in supreme condition, with all concerns about the rugby team formerly known as Rochdale messing up the pitch in their foul weathered Good Friday clash with Oldham being washed away. With the matchday programme carrying an interview with the groundsman over the progress with the pitch, you'd have thought that it would be a recipe for a mudbath but it looked resplendent in the Easter sunshine.

Surprise number two was the team selection, with a number of changes from the game at Bournemouth last weekend. We had the return of Marcus Holness into central defence, making his first Dale appearance since December. Kallum Higginbotham had a recall to the starting line up for just his third appearance for Dale this year. Will Buckley was back in the side after recovering his strength from his recent bout of tonsilitus. Keltie was back after suspension, and we had the starting pairing of Le Fondre and Dagnall for possibly the first time since Wembley, though this may or may not be proven by hard fact but a lack of time and botheredness restricts the required research to back this up.

Surprises three and four had the Dale diehards crying into their "Who needs Cantona when we've got Shaun Reid" T-Shirts. Did we really have a troupe of performing cheerleaders on the pitch before kick off? Had they been a set of drag queens camping it up, I'd have gone with that, but it was your typical "Miss Sandra's Under Nine Cheerleading Team" stuff, where each participant was looking round at the others to follow the routine.

And whilst recovering from that shock, we had then had the players assembling for one of those pre-match huddle things that we've thankfully been spared over the years. Perhaps we'd heard that the winning side at the previous day's Rugby League encounter had done something similar. It's called a scrum chaps.

As for Port Vale, well they seem to be following the same pattern shown by a number of relegated sides over the years. Despite having played at a higher level for the majority of their supporters' lifetimes, they have adapted to life as a poor League Two side admirably well. They are the new Notts County, make no mistake.

It would seem that their support has accepted this very quickly, with a travelling support of such a number that even Macclesfield would have looked down upon, as just over 300 made the journey North for the Bank Holiday weekend fixture.

First half, and the game went exactly how we would have wanted the game to go. We started with a purpose and a clear game plan that all were sticking to. We were million miles an hour, all over the place and looking to win the game with opening ten minutes of the game. It'd had been a game talked up before the game about how the opening goal would change everything, and it seemed we were intent on making sure that we'd be the ones celebrating scoring first.

We were playing well and we forced a succession of corners early on, and we are often prone to do. The corners caused some discomfort for the Valiants, but each seemed to lead to another corner a pattern which could have continued for the rest of the half had the referee not missed a superb save from the Vale keeper. The keeper's grin to those behind the nets was as much admittance as was required.

We were causing all sorts of bother for the Vale defence, with Chris Dagnall showing the sort of form he displayed at the same stage of the season last year, but completely going against the script it was the visitors who had the first golden chance of the game when a headed effort went off the Dale cross bar.

But whilst the eleven men of Dale couldn't convert their dominance into a goal, it was the ten men of Dale who made the breakthrough. With Kallum Higginbotham off the field receiving treatment, and Joey T still doing his warm up routine, we were one short but it mattered little. Daggers was scaring the Vale defence to death, and beat two or three of them before cutting back a perfect cross for Will Buckley who simply had to tap it in. The cross had sufficient quality that Buckley could probably have let it bounce off him and it would still have gone in.

The lead was exactly what was deserved and there'd been a growing feeling that one goal could provoke an avalanche as we looked to recoup the goal difference advantage that we had a fortnight ago. 45 minutes to go, so sit back and enjoy the potential goalfest.

Second half, and it was a different story. I don't know if it came down to latest scores from other games, but despite having what was as comfortable a lead as 1-0 could ever be, we had a massive attack of the jitters. Jitters amongst the supporters and jitters amongst the players, and it showed. We lost all fluidity to our play, and whilst Vale never ever looked capable of actually scoring, we played like an opposition equaliser was always just a kick away.

That said, there were many positives that could be drawn from the display. Playing with what seemed to be a holding on mentality, we did exactly that. We might not have looked like adding to our lead, but we never really looked like conceding. Though the feeling off the field was one expecting something to go wrong at any moment, it never happened or even looked like happening.

Vale had probably the best opportunity of the second period, when the much maligned Dean Glover broke clear of pretty much every other outfield player, but he did to ensure that the next time he's booed it's because he's crap rather than because he's the manager's son, as he failed to even get as far as converting his opportunity into a chance. A retreating Ciaron Toner produced a great tackle as Glover junior looked towards goal rather than feeding in his better placed teammates.

But that failed opportunity was pretty much it from either side, other than more penalty appeals from Will Buckley which only looked like doing anything when the ref's whistle and point for a goal kick got us all a tiny bit excited for a split second.

The final whistle followed a three minute spell of injury time. Quite where the three minutes came from is anybody's guess but by this stage, there was no holding on, and we almost grabbed a second during this time which may well have justified Adam Rundle's win bonus from this game.

Three points in the bag, and whilst it might not have been our best performance of the season, it was probably one of our bravest. We were on a hiding to nothing up against a side more interested in reading holiday brochures than matchday programmes but the job was done and we're still in there fighting for automatic promotion. We might not be in the box seat, but it probably suits us down to the ground to be looking up rather than looking down.

Photo: Action Images

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