Rochdale 2 - 0 Bury

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Ian Henderson opened the scoring for Rochdale

Rochdale continued their winning run with victory over local rivals Bury in a fiery encounter at The Crown Oil Arena, which saw Bury end the game with nine men.

Ian Henderson, from the penalty spot, and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scored either side of half time to move Rochdale up to fourth in the league.

Bury had defender Kean Bryan sent off for a crude challenge on Andy Cannon and Jacob Mellis was show a second yellow soon after for a foul on Calvin Andrew.

In a hostile atmosphere, this East Lancashire derby started at a frenetic pace from the first whistle with Dale going close inside the opening 20 seconds. Straight from the kick off, Steven Davies picked up from Andrew’s flick on to find Mendez-Laing on the right, whose pace saw him drive into the area but a last gasp challenge by Kean Bryan denied him.

Mendez-Laing went close again less than two minutes later when he dropped his shoulder to beat a defender, Ben Williams blocking the shot with his legs.

Dale weren’t having it all their own way in the opening minutes. Neil Dann was denied a free header at goal by some brave defending by Canavan after some good wing play from Zeli Ismail.

The game always looked like it had an underlying fire about it and that fire came to the surface just before the 15 minute mark. A rash challenge by Jacob Mellis on Andrew, right in front of the dugouts, saw both sets of players involved in a fracas with the Bury man escaping any punishment from the official.

Two minutes later and it was full back Niall Maher’s turn to fire up the crowd with a bad tackle on Dale’s Davies, this time the referee dishing out a yellow card for Maher.

A big talking point in the game came not long before half-time when Matt Lund drew a foul from Mellis inside the area and the referee awarded Dale a penalty - much to the disbelief of Bury manager Dave Flitcroft. Ian Henderson stepped up to send his former Colchester team mate Ben Williams the wrong way from 12 yards.

To be fair to Bury, they started the second half much better but couldn’t find a way through a resolute Dale defence.

With Bury seeing more of the ball in the opening 15 minutes of the second half, it was Dale who then stepped up a gear as they went in search of a second goal.

A deep corner from Joe Bunney picked out Lund whose downward header found Henderson but his shot was well blocked. The loose ball fell to Mendez-Laing to fire a controlled volley at goal with an acrobatic Williams tipping the ball over.

Bury had the ball in the back of the net just after the hour mark, but James Vaughan’s effort was ruled out by an offside flag.

With 15 minutes left on the clock, Rochdale made sure of the points when Mendez-Laing stroked the ball into the bottom corner after good work from substitute Andy Cannon. The winger picked up the ball on the edge of the area before firing through the legs of Bryan to double the advantage.

It was after the second goal that the Bury players lost their cool. Kean Bryan was rightly shown a straight red card for a horrible two-footed tackle on Cannon and later Mellis was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Andrew.

Dale deserved their win and they climbed above Bury in the process.

Rochdale: Lillis, Rafferty, Canavan, Keane, Bunney, Camps, Lund, Mendez-Laing (Odelusi 89), Andrew, Davies (Cannon 68), Henderson (c).
Subs: (not used) Logan, McGahey, McDermott, Rathbone, Morley

Bury: Williams, Maher, Kay (c), Bryan, Leigh, Ismail (Hope 59), Mellis, Soares, Mayor, Danns (Miller 71), Vaughan.
Subs: (not used) Rachubka, Etuhu, Tutte, Walker, Burgess

Referee: Mr P Bankes
Assistants: Mr M McGrath and Mr P Hodskinson
Fourth Official: Mr D England

Attendance 5,344