In a dominant home display, Dale scored twice in each half to get the better of Eastleigh on Saturday afternoon.
Devante Rodney scored another brace and alongside Ian Henderson’s second-half goal and an own goal Dale ran out convincing winners.
The Dale head coach made three changes to the midweek eleven with Ethan Ebanks-Landell, Tarryn Allarakhia and Ian Henderson returning to start in place of Liam Hogan, Michael Adu-Poku and Kairo Mitchell.
Eastleigh were pressing high early on and had a couple of shots from the edge of the box from Tyrese Shade and Jake Taylor respectively, however these were both closed down well by the Dale defence.
With 11 minutes elapsed, Dale broke the deadlock. Rodney scoring after Kyron Gordon picked out Tobi Adebayo-Rowling well down the right whose first touch took him away from the defender and he squared for the Rodney to score.
Dale's second goal came when Aidan Barlow whipped in a dangerous corner that came off the hapless Luis Fernandez and trickled over the Eastleigh goal line.
Dale were playing with an intense tempo and with intricate play from Barlow and Adebayo-Rowling on the right, the former put a teasing ball across which was cleared just in front of Henderson.
Ten minutes before the break, it could have been three. Ebanks-Landell took a free-kick quickly with a wonderfully weighted ball through to Henderson who stroked his shot agonisingly wide of the near post.
Dale had another huge opportunity to extend the lead after the break when Henderson nipped in and slid in Barlow who found himself one-on-one but sent his shot over the crossbar.
Eastleigh created an opening when Paul McCallum was adjudged to have beaten the offside trap, but Dale goalkeeper Killian Barrett was equal to the low shot.
Dale scored a deserved third when Sam Beckwith delightfully picked out Adebayo-Rowling who prodded towards Henderson, he stayed cool to shoot past Eastleigh goalkeeper Joe McDonnell from close range to make it eleven goals in all competitions.
Dale made it four when Corey Edwards sprayed the ball out to Adebayo-Rowling who skipped past two Eastleigh defenders and made it a hat-trick of assists as he teed up Rodney to score.
Tyrese Shade forced Barrett into a fine tipping save from a deflected shot in the last play of a fine afternoon’s work.
Dale XI | Barrett, Gordon, Ebanks-Landell (c), Allarakhia (79′ Kingdon), Gilmour, Rodney (90+1′ Adu-Poku), Adebayo-Rowling, Barlow (66′ Mitchell), Edwards (84′ Weston), Beckwith (79′ Ferguson), Henderson.
Unused subs | Armstrong, Ayinde.
Scorers | 11′, 75′ Rodney, 18′ Own Goal, 63′ Henderson.
Eastleigh XI | McDonnell, Fernandez, Francillette, Maguire, Taylor, Shade, Hodson (58′ McCallum), Panter (45′ Humphries), Close (69′ Underhill), Boutin, Tshikuna.
Unused subs | Scott, Ryan.
Attendance | 1762 (13 visitors).
