MJ Williams says the players will look to take the positives from Sunday’s performance against Portsmouth in the Emirates FA Cup into the rest of the week and beyond.
The second round tie against Pompey was the start of a busy week for Dale, with Oldham Athletic the visitors to the Crown Oil Arena on Wednesday and a trip to AFC Wimbledon in League One awaiting on Saturday.
Keith Hill’s side pushed an inform Portsmouth all the way, dominating the second half, and were cruelly denied at least a replay as the visitors netted late on with the help of a heavy deflection, as well as Rochdale being denied a penalty in stoppage time.
“I thought we were unlucky with the deflection. It’s small margins in the game,” said Man of the Match Williams.
“The first half was back and forth but we took a grip of the game in the second half and I thought we should have gone on to win it.
“We were unlucky with a couple of decisions and we had a lot of chances to score as well.
“We’ve got to take how well we’ve played against the team that is top of League One as a positive.”
He continued: “Everyone to a man put in a shift.
“I don’t think we deserved to lose the game. But we’ve got to push on now – we’ve got a big game on Wednesday and then we go into Saturday, and like I said, we have to take the positives from today’s performance because we’ve competed against top of League One.
“Everyone hates losing and we we’re all feeling down, but we’ve got a busy period coming up and we’ve just got to take everything we’re doing and all the hard work we’re putting in onto the pitch and pick up results.
“We’re a very good team, it’s just that we haven’t got the consistency at this moment in time to really push up the table.”