 He managed to be fit for the start of the following season and was once more involved in another Division Three promotion campaign, as despite injury problems (yet another long-term knee injury) he found the net nine times in Wigan's championship season and struck up a prolific partnership with Graeme Jones.However, once more his opportunities would be limited after promotion and he joined Rochdale for £40,000 in October 1997.He played at Spotland for four years but had numerous soft tissue injuries that kept him out of the team on many occasions, never stringing a sustained number of matches together, before leaving at the end of the 2000–01 season.