Chris O'Grady's first-half strike and an own-goal by Mark Tootle handed the League Two leaders their ninth win from the last 13 games and provided the ideal response to any doubters questioning Dale's staying power.

"It was really important for us to get back to winning ways, otherwise people would have been asking questions and the supporters would have been saying `here we go again,'" said Dale boss Keith Hill referring to last week's 1-0 defeat by neighbours Bury.

"We don't have a game now for two weeks, so we can't affect what other teams are doing, we can only affect things when we play.