In less than pleasant conditions at a windy Edgeley Park Keith Hill's side never really rose to the sort of heights that they are capable of and two "suicidal" defensive errors helped to present their hosts with 3 vital points.
The visitors enjoyed perhaps the best of the opening exchanges and went close after just 4 minutes when Rene Howe found Gary Jones who then fired narrowly wide with his left foot from the edge of the penalty area.
Defensive error number 1 came after 10 minutes as Anthony Pilkington swung in a corner from the left and with no fewer than 5 yellow shirted defenders around him playing at statues Liam Dickinson had the easiest of close range headers to open the scoring with.
Shaleum Logan went close to doubling his sides lead with a lovely lob from 25 yards before at the other end a wickedly drilled Adam Rundle cross was deflected somewhat fortuatously over his own crossbar by Ashley Williams.
The visitors then lost Kallum Higginbotham to a knee injury after the youngster had been involved in a heavy but fair challenge with Dickenson and as the half drew to a close Adam Le Fondre shaved the crossbar with a smart turn and shot and substitute Ben Muirhead saw his close range effort blocked after good work by Rundle.
The start of the second period again saw Dale in ascendency with Howe glancing a header straight at John Ruddy in the Stockport goal, Gary Jones fired narrowly wide with his left foot and at the end of the best move of the match Ruddy produced a brilliant reaction save to deny Howe on 55 minutes.
Ruddy's save would prove to be the turning point as just 90 seconds later a double error by Tom Kennedy resulted in Dickenson getting behind the Dale defence, James Spencer rushed out to meeet him but couldn't get there and despite a full length dive by Nathan Stanton his shot from an angle on the right hand side of the box found the net.
From then on in County were prepared to sit back and defend what they had been given and despite a lot of huffing and puffing Dale never ever looked like blowing down their barrier. Time and again home defenders blocked goal bound shots or crosses with Howe coming closest to pulling a goal back as he fired over after a knock down by Le Fondre.
Defeat isn't the end of the world, especially as Bury saw off Rotherham tonight but the reality is that Dale now need to start winning at home if they are to challenge for a Play off spot in the coming weeks.