Gillingham’s stand-in skipper Gabriel Zakuani admitted their opponents wanted it more at the weekend.

Rochdale bossed the opening half on home turf and virtually had the game won by the break.

“We know what went wrong,” said the experienced defender, whose side lost 3-0.

“It wasn’t rocket science, we weren’t as hungry as they were.

“We gave it a good go second half but it wasn’t enough. On Tuesday (at home to Scunthorpe) we have to give everything and hopefully the result will come.”

The defeat came just a week after a 1-0 win over Charlton and it led to head coach Ady Pennock losing his job.

“We just knew that we had to give everything (against Charlton),” he said, reflecting on the contrasting performances.

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“It was a local derby. It didn’t take a lot of motivation. At places like Rochdale you have to motivate yourself. The fans made a long trip and we’re really disappointed for them.”

Scunthorpe are looking to push towards a promotion place again this season and will give the defence plenty to think about.

Zakuani said: “I thought the last two games (before Saturday) we had turned the corner. It is a good thing that this next game is coming really fast, we have a chance to turn it around.

“I want it massively, the whole team do, we want to play as soon as possible. They are a team that usually have a good attack, they play good football, so we just have to dust oursleves off and get on with it.

“We can’t dwell on Saturday, things change quickly. It changed the other time when we lost to Oxford, we got a result on the Tuesday and the Saturday."