His focus on landing his second Claret Jug
Rose, hopes of a Home Nations winner are still alive.
Rose carded a stunning, seven-under par round of 64 early in the day to rocket into Claret Jug contention.
Then late starters Mcilroy and Fleetwood kept themselves within shooting distance of championship glory.
Mcilroy’s rollercoaster round of 70 left him five under for the tournament, four shots behind the overnight leaders.
Fleetwood, meanwhile, recovered admirably from a nightmare double-bogey, bogey run on 12 and 13 to match Mcilroy’s score through three rounds.
It was topsy-turvy stuff at times from the high-flying pair.
But Mcilroy intends to attack Carnoustie tomorrow – and claim his first Major in four years.
He said: “I’m going to get out there and try to get off to a fast start.
“I want to post a number and see what happens.
“Looking back at the last couple of Opens here it seems like guys have come out of the pack a little bit.
“There are a lot of guys in there, three, four, five shots behind that will take a lot of heart from that. If I can get out there and make as many birdies as I did today, without making as many mistakes, hopefully that will be good enough.”
Beyond the trio of UK contenders, top-of-theleaderboard European interest remains in Italian star Francesco Molinari and Sweden’s Alex Noren, who sit three and four shots off the lead respectively.