The current footballing term de rigueur is "winning ugly" and that was exactly what we did. We were far from our best, we struggled to dictate proceedings at times and once or twice we got dragged into a game of hoofball, but we walked away, three points in tact, having answered yet another "but what if....?". And we did it in a style which left Keith Alexander furious. Double points all round!

We went into the game unchanged, with seemingly our rotation system put to one side for now, chasing a fourth successive victory and our first win at the Moss Rose since Iyseden Christie scored for us. Well "scored".

With the frost of recent weeks limiting itself to a windchill and the usual Macc downpours absent for the day, there was probably just short of a thousand Dale supporters who made the journey down to Cheshire, with fans packing out the uncovered terrace behind the goal and the final third of the stand down the side.

The first half was probably the most one sided half you are ever likely to see in professional football, and at times it was slightly embarrassing such was the gulf in class between the two teams. Despite playing on a pitch which seemed more akin to abandoning test matches on, Dale ran the show and made it look like men against boys against a Macclesfield side which went into the game without a goal in their previous three matches. Which showed.

We were all over them, and we quite possibly got our corner count into double figures as we had them constantly on the back foot. We were giving them a footballing lesson and they just couldn't live with us. Without any one player outstanding for Dale, we showed the importance that a well drilled side doesn't have to be one that plays the long ball game, and it was no surprise that Hilly used the phrase (again) "footballed them to death" after the game.

Of course, you could be critical, and we wouldn't be the "rebel site" if we didn't find something to moan about on here, but for all the possession that we had, and the umpteen corners, we pretty much had just the once chance that really tested the Macc keeper Johnny Brain. Yes, we had them under pressure and we only let them touch the ball once every five minutes but the Macc defence did a top class job on ensuring that we didn't walk away with it.

The silent protesting Macc fan watching the game from a nearby rooftop must have been wishing for a longer ban than just the 18 months as his side couldn't get near the ball, though I have to say for all his good intentions of "18 months ban so what" on his protesting banner, if you go to the effort of making a banner and watching an obscured view of Macc v Dale from a third story window on a bitterly cold afternoon through a set of binoculars, then you probably are quite bothered and "so what" is a little bit of bravado.

Anyway, such was the Dale dominance in the first half, you'd have been half expecting to see Dale get a call from the pavilion to declare at one point. Every time Macc tried to clear the ball, it was mopped up by the outstanding Dale defence who offered the on loan Macc attack no change whatsoever. Every clearance seemed to launch yet another Dale attack.

But there was a growing feeling of doubt, that nothing was coming from this, and had it made to half time like this, the home side would have taken a great deal of confidence from shutting out a rampant Dale side. But with around five minutes of the half remaining, it looked like the breakthrough had been made.

With Macc chasing shadows repeatedly, gaps were being found, and Scott Wiseman found himself with practically the whole right hand side of the pitch to himself after he received a superb ball from the yet again impressive Joey Thompson. Even from 40 yards out when he collected the ball, it was always going to be a one on one as no one was ever going to get near him, but as he raced into the box, he saw his shot saved by the Macc keeper Brain.

With Dale opting not to bother with a keeper on the bench, there was a first half argument for not even naming a keeper in the starting eleven as Frank Fielding was an unused starter, and you couldn't have blamed him for getting cold and bored. So on one of those very rare occasions that Macc came into our half, he gave them a little whiff of excitement by racing out of his box to chase down wingman Thomas. But it was just to tease the Silkies as they couldn't even convert this into a cross as Fielding collected Thomas' effort.

But at long, long, long last, the dominance paid off around three minutes into injury time at the end of the first half. Chris Dagnall was put clean through, and was challenged just inside the box by the Macc keeper Brain. Got to be honest and say that gut feeling suggested that it wasn't a penalty, but the referee Sarginson had little doubts and pointed to the spot straight away tho rather oddly restricted the Macc keeper to a yellow card when he couldn't have been any more of a last man had Brain had the words "last man" painted on his shirt in giant dayglo lettering.

With Alfie off the pitch, there was bit of doubt about who'd take the spot kick but there was no doubt in TK's mind and the former Bury man had no problems at all converting the set piece to give Dale a 1-0 lead which was flattering for he home side. No doubt Keith Alexander could have seen this coming.

Whilst the first half was in danger of seeing every two bit hack (including ourselves obviously) using the phrase Valentines Day Massacre to death over the weekend, the second half at the very least made something of a contest of the game, though in reality you always felt we had more to give than we did. Macc stepped up a gear and certainly didn't allow us to play the game like they had done in the first half.

They hurried and harried, chasing us down, and whilst it didn't make the game aesthetically pleasing to watch, they at least looked capable of competing and it was probably them who looked the more likely to score in the second half, though like ourselves in the first half, chances were few and far between.

They had a very early shout for a penalty, when a stray hand from McArdle shoved one attacker in the back. A second or so later, he realised that had he gone down, the referee would probably have evened things up by awarding them a penalty (an Alexander tactic no doubt), so when Stanton came into challenge him, he fell to the floor. Laughable at best.

There was another shout for a penalty at the other end with possibly the most blatant handball you've ever seen. You can forgive refs for not giving handballs for judging it ball to hand or something along those lines, but when the referee runs away patting his stomach like a well fed Homer Simpson, when the whole ground including KA saw that it hit the hand, you have to question what motivates these people.

Hearts were in the mouth down at the other end, as the home side thought they had secured a penalty. A challenge by Gary Jones on Danny Thomas was deemed to be illegal and just outside the box. The Macc players insisted it was inside the box, whilst many a Dale supporter and Jonah himself insisted that he had been the one fouled. Thomas never even made eye contact with the ref as he walked away. As I saw it, Jonah was inside the box, Thomas was outside the box, and the ref probably got this one just right. The free kick brought the best save of the game as Fielding produced a wonderful reaction save to force it wide for a corner.

Rather worryingly for Macclesfield supporters, at a time when they were chasing the game and possibly looking for inspiration from their manager, Keith Alexander seemed more intent on reacting to chants from the away terrace, with four separate reactions to the Dale supporters as those behind the goal teased the former Bury Director of Football or whatever crappy misnomer of a title they gave him.

There were a couple of moments which gave us the merest suggestion that Macc had a chance of levelling things up, but our defence proved time again and again to be too good for the on loan Macc attack who played like complete strangers. Even when they got through, Frank at the back was more than a match for them, even at the second attempt.

We had a few forays into the Macc half and we half threatened to add to our lead, with Dagnall probably coming the closest but the hard work from the Macc back line was possibly the one thing that Macc supporters could go home happy with from this encounter.

There were two moments of note as time ran out. The first was as Nathan Stanton charged down the Macc winger down by the corner flag. The winger held back expecting Stanton to knock it out for either a throw or a corner, but Stanton's slide simply shepherded the ball out of play with the Macc wingman looking foolish from the incident which left Stanton with the biggest smile seen this side of the Joker.

The other moment saw the nasally challenged Simon Yeo given the sort of chance that he's swept up so many times in his career. But with a three yard head start on the nearest defender, Kennedy go to the ball with Yeo not even close to it. Time to collect the gold clock Simon.

The four minutes of injury was mostly spent with Lee McEvilly keeping the ball by the corner flag, almost to the extent that he could easily have missed the final whistle and still be keeping the ball down there at 8:30 on Saturday evening. When they finally cleared the ball, it brought ironic cheers from the home fans, but they didn't even come close to having a sniff in those four minutes. Professionalism personified by the Dale.

The final whistle showed me just how much we've progressed as a club. There were times that away wins were treated like Willy Wonka golden tickets and celebrated long into the night. This was simply job done, with attention immediately turning to Tuesday night.