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Rochdale came back down to earth with a bump at Gay Meadow following their excellent win on Saturday, coming up against a strong Shrewsbury Town outfit that edged into the play off places with the win.
It was a victory that was justified on the whole with the home side dominating the first half and large parts of the second.
With Dale manager opting to keep with the same team that thumped Stockport County at the weekend optimism was high among those connection with Rochdale that they could pull off another win against a side chasing promotion, but those thoughts quickly evapourated as The Shrews came out of the blocks like a train.
With just two minutes gone it looked as though Dale's Dave Perkins had gifted the home side the perfect start after his mis-direct header back to Nathan Stanton put Derek Asamoah in. The pacy striker went down under the challenge of Stanton but Edwards was on hand to smash the ball goalwards from close and only a superb stop by Matt Gilks prevented an early goal.
The chance didn't end there though as the ball fell kindly for edwards to have another stab at opening the scoring but Perkins, making up for his initial error was on hand to hack the ball off the line.
Derek Asamoah along with the very strong Leo Fortune-West were proving a real threat in the Shrewsbury attack and whilst Asamoah was out-running and out-witting his markers, he failed in the finish a number of times early on.
He squandered two very good chances in the first half the first coming from a deep right-sided cross that he brought down well before firing high over the bar from some 10-yards.
Ramsden was having a torrid time and Asamoah was using his pace to good effect down the flank, getting past his man before cutting back and going for goal but Goodall read the situation and came across to block.
Rochdale weren't without chances of their own in the first period with Dodds latching ontop a Murray through ball, but he was superbly brought to a halt with a fine tackle from Hope.
The second half had barely started when Shrewsbury took the lead thanks to a stunner from Leo Fortune - West. A long ball forward put the striker in with a shout despite the attentions of Nathan Stanton and Fortune - West smashed a 22-yard volley past Gilks.
Five minutes later Gilks was called on to deal with a Drummond effort on goal after a partially cleared corner was hooked back in by the Shrewsbury man. From the resulting corner Gilks was again alert to smother a header from Hope at the near post.
Dale's management duo changed things by adding more weight to the attack, switching formation to 3-4-3 after introducing Chris Dagnall and Danny Reet for Dodds and Rundle.
For a time it worked as Rochdale pushed their hosts back but they never really saw the whites of Mackenzies eyes thanks to some great defending.
On 64 minutes Dale went two down after Fortune -West slotted the ball to Asamoah. He in turn angled a ball onto the head of attacking midfielder Edwards and he steered his header over the advancing Gilks.
It wasn't long before the home side added a third and Dale will have no-one to blame but themselves as poor defending allowed Drummond to head home form a 77th minute corner.
Rochdale did the end game with a couple of chances the best of which fell to Chris Dagnall. A ball from Doolan found the young scousers head but he was denied by a brilliant save from the under-worked Mackenzie.
The win pushed Shrewsbury into 7th in the table after Wycombe lost to Bristol Rovers and there can be no doubt that playing like that they are surely looking good for promotion.
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