Rochdale 4 : 0 Crewe Alexandra - Dale down Alex at Spotland

Posted Wednesday, March 04, 2015 by PA

Two goals each for Ian Henderson and Joe Bunney helped Rochdale see off Crewe with a comfortable 4-0 win at Spotland.

Both of Henderson's strikes came from the penalty spot while Bunney scored the second and fourth goals on an easy evening for Dale.

Crewe wasted a good early opportunity when Jamie Ness was left with just goalkeeper Jamie Jones to beat, but his attempt to dink the ball over the on-loan Dale keeper flew tamely wide of the target.

The breakthrough came in the 38th minute when Joe Rafferty was brought down by Bradden Inman, earning a penalty for his side.

Henderson had crashed his last two spot-kicks against the crossbar but this time opted for the bottom left-hand corner of Paul Rachubka's net.

The lead was almost doubled when Jack O'Connell met a corner and saw his powerful header cleared off the line by Anthony Grant.

Bunney made it 2-0 just before the hour anyway, collecting Henderson's pass on the left side of the area and slamming a low drive beyond Rachubka.

Henderson then added his second spot kick of the night following Jon Guthrie's foul on Bunney.

The visitors were denied a consolation goal when O'Connell's block tackle robbed the ball off Nicky Ajose's toes. And Jamie Allen teed up Bunney with 10 minutes to go for his second of the night.