Robert Louis Stevenson's Victorian melodrama about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is much more than a story of scientific experimenting going wrong - it begs the question of whether it is the good suppressingthe bad or the bad escaping the virtues of the good.

Three points against a team even lower than the Rams in the league were absolutely essential if the progress in performance, albeit slow and patchy, over the last few games was to be taken as a credible sign of a steady climb up the league towards the play-off positions.

A mellow performance on a misty afternoon saw the Rams ease through into the next round of the Buildbase FA Trophy much more comfortably than the score line might suggest.

The feral growl of triumph that emenated from the throat of each Rams player at the final whistle followed by the sound celebratory banging of the changing room walls spoke eloquently of how much this win meant after a few trying weeks.

The Rams could, should and would have got a deserved point out of this game except for an unfortunate mishap by keeper Ashley Shenton. While never reaching the level of performance achieved at Colne, they will know that while to come away empty handed was very disappointing, defeats of this kind are always on the cards in a league in which away games are always a challenge and that the reverse can reasonably be seen as a blip in the upwards trajectory of performance and not a reverse into the despond of the early season.

This local derby served up a feast for the rain-sodden spectators on an otherwise miserable afternoon in east Lancashire.