Mansfield Town have an exciting FA Cup appointment with Arsenal at the weekend but Rotherham United are still unable to shake the feeling they’ll be playing Accrington next season.
Having given their survival bid a major boost with victory over an upwardly mobile Plymouth Argyle three days earlier, Rotherham failed to build on it against Cup giantkillers Mansfield in a dire goalless draw at the AESSEAL New York Stadium.
Matt Hamshaw’s men at least moved a point closer to safety – two points adrift of fifth-bottom Blackpool - with a second clean sheet of the week but they remain rooted in the bottom four with just 12 games remaining now to stave off relegation to League Two.
They will need to show greater urgency if they are to extricate themselves from the hole they have dug, with a spell at the start and end of the second half all they had to show for 90 minutes of huff, puff but not enough potency.
No way through: Rotherham's Dan Gore is brought down by Mansfield's Oliver Irow and Deji Oshilaja (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)placeholder image
No way through: Rotherham's Dan Gore is brought down by Mansfield's Oliver Irow and Deji Oshilaja (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)
Victory could have sucked Mansfield back into trouble but instead the Stags took a welcome point before switching attention to that well-earned glamour tie with the Premier League leaders back at Field Mill on Saturday lunchtime.
Dan Gore was a welcome sight in the starting XI for the Millers after a month out of the team, but the playmaker’s radar was wonky in a first half in which the hosts failed to muster a single shot on target.
Three times Manchester United loanee Gore sprang from deep but on each occasion his passes were either too heavy for the likes of Duncan Watmore and Sam Nombe, or behind them.
Rotherham’s lack of urgency allowed Mansfield to grow into the game and it was they who showed the most penetration, former Barnsley forward Jon Russell twice testing goalkeeper Ted Cann from long range.
Rotherham's Duncan Watmore holds off Mansfield's Elliot Hewitt (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)placeholder image
Rotherham's Duncan Watmore holds off Mansfield's Elliot Hewitt (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)
Rotherham needed more urgency in the second half and it was Harry Gray who provided it, first with a belated first touch in the Mansfield penalty area seconds after the restart, and then with a charge to the byline and cutback that found Reece James whose goalbound shot was blocked by Lucas Akins.
Gray tested Stags goalkeeper Liam Roberts with a deflected shot, but Rotherham’s rediscovered tempo soon fizzled out.
Instead it was Mansfield who carried the greater threat and the Millers were indebted to Lenny Agbaire for a crucial block on Oliver Irow’s shot.
Louis Reed scored two goals from the edge of the area when Mansfield upset Sheffield United in the FA Cup third round at Bramall Lane back in January, and nearly had one a few miles at the New York Stadium, but Rotherham got enough red shirts in the way to deflect his 76th-minute effort over the bar.
Shouts for a handball from an increasingly desperate home end fell on deaf ears as the whistle blew on what will feel like an opportunity missed for the Millers.