Brian Barry-Murphy has praised his side’s performance in Dale’s 2-1 win at Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.
The Dale boss says there was huge satisfaction to take from the game which resulted in a second successive away win.
“Because we were under pressure towards the end you might think ‘oh that was hard’, but I thought for long spells of the game we were brilliant,” said Barry-Murphy.
“Particularly in the first-half, I thought we were dangerous every time we went forward. I was very pleased for Alex Newby to get his first league goal and for Ollie Rathbone, because they’re the guys that we expect to start scoring goals, to complement Matty Lund’s goal in the week. There was huge satisfaction in a lot of areas for us today.
“The shape of our squad is obviously very small, but looking at our team today we had Gavin Bazunu – 18, Haydon Roberts – 18, Tolaji Bola – 21, Aaron Morley we think is almost 30, 31, but he’s actually 20!
“So, we’re a very young team, but then we have the golden oldies in the likes of Jim McNulty and Paul McShane. I thought it was going to be a hard game for us coming to one of the bigger hitters in League One in terms of finances. To show as much courage and aggression that we did throughout the game was very exciting for me.
“Every time I looked up in the first-half we were in good areas and every time one of our wide players went to cross we had five or six players in the box. We’re very aware that we have to be committed to attack to score goals this season.
“We haven’t got an Ian Henderson or Callum Camps who are going to score huge amounts of goals, but the other players will score loads of goals and we have to be a real team in the way that we attack teams. The lads’ commitment to that has been flawless.”
Barry-Murphy was delighted for Alex Newby, who scored his first league goal for the Club in the win.
“Alex and Jake Beesley have been incredible and their popularity in the dressing room has been sky high since day one because of their work ethic.
“The physical output they’re putting into the game has been extraordinary. These guys have never gone through the fixtures that they’re going to go through and have gone through, in terms of Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday.
“They’ve never experienced this intensity of football before so the efforts they’re putting in are incredible and are rightly being recognised by the rest of the guys.”
Beesley was forced off with a head injury late on and he will be assessed ahead of Tuesday’s game against Sunderland.
“He’s had stitches for quite a severe cut on his forehead so we’ll have to see how he is for Tuesday night. He had some heavy bangs but his commitment to stay on the pitch and almost be forced off at the last moment was testament to his character and the work that he’s doing.”
Click HERE to watch Barry-Murphy’s interview in full.