KING KIEFFER RESCUES MILLERS...
Last-gasp leveller makes it misery for boss Ferguson
KIEFFER Moore scored with the final kick of the game to salvage a point for Rotherham – and spare the blushes of his skipper!
Richard Wood endured a derbyday disaster, missing an open goal from six yards before lancing an unstoppable shot past his own goalkeeper.
But just when it appeared the Millers defender would steal some unwanted headlines, Moore capitalised on a frantic goalmouth scramble to dispatch his 13th – and most dramatic – goal of the season.
Denied his first back-to-back wins of the season, Donny boss Darren Ferguson was upset that the equaliser came in the sixth of a stipulated five extra minutes. So much for Fergie time.
“It’s very raw, a big body blow,” said Ferguson, whose famous father regularly benefitted from a few extra seconds at the death.
“All the lads are gutted down there. It feels like a defeat and it’s very difficult to say anything that
will lift my players after that.
“The only explanation the referee will have for the extra time is that (Tommy) Rowe went down injured but it wasn’t for as long as the game went on. It’s frustrating but what can you do?”
Donny have won just two home league games all season and their uncertainty at the Keepmoat was again apparent.
Rarely in the first half did Ferguson’s men find any kind of fluency or rhythm, their only real opening a debatable penalty claim from the waspish John Marquis.
The striker was felled by Semi Ajayi. Replays, though, showed he engineered the contact by stepping across the defender a la Jamie Vardy. Thereafter, Doncaster’s top scorer cut a frustrated figure as service from wide arrived too late, too soon or, in most cases, not at all.
Rotherham were marginally more fluent and should have led when Ryan Williams’ pinpoint delivery was headed against the crossbar by Ajayi.
With Rovers keeper Ian Lawlor grounded, Wood simply needed to nod the rebound vaguely goalward. Somehow, he also found the bar, then watched the ball drop straight to the grateful Lawlor.
Was it over the line? Wood wheeled in celebration, referee Graham Scott was nonplussed and, with replays inconclusive, probably correct.
“Woody says that will go on a bloopers DVD for Christmas,” said Millers boss Paul Warne. “He should have scored. Then he kindly donated a goal to them!”
And how. With Doncaster dominating the second half, Rodney Kongolo crossed from the right.
Wood, wary of the lurking Marquis, attempted to clear but instead prodded beyond Richard O’Donnell.
The next 30 minutes were a masterclass in game-management from the home side, whose ability to cut off supply lines and waste time was – genuinely – praised by Warne.
Bar a Jonson Clarke-Harris snapshot that hit the post, chances to equalise were non-existent but then Marquis failed to clear, sub David Ball tricked his way into the Doncaster box, and when his shot was saved, Moore scrambled a scruffy leveller over the line.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” added Warne, who inspired his troops with a pre-match lesson on the relevance of Armistice Day.
“I kept thinking the ref was going to blow up. Thankfully, he didn’t. Then, when we scored, I didn’t want it to end. Now my son and daughter can go to school in Donny and be proud of their dad, not think he’s a let-down!”
Ferguson, meanwhile, refused to be downbeat.
“Nobody can have any complaints about the desire, the determination,” he said.