Grant McCann admitted that Doncaster paid the price for not killing off Bradford after Tuesday night’s Yorkshire derby finished in a 1-1 League Two draw at Valley Parade.
Substitute Tyler Smith scored a late equaliser for the home side after Luke Molyneux’s fifth goal of the season had put Rovers on course for victory.
Doncaster manager McCann said: “I’m really disappointed we’ve drawn the game. I thought we were outstanding in the first half.
“We need to get to that point when we’ve got teams on the ropes that we need to kill them off and we will do.
“We passed around them and exploited the angles and were very good on a shocking pitch. But this pitch was better than Walsall’s pitch on Saturday – it’s a little bit flatter.
“We knew there would be a reaction from (Bradford boss) Graham (Alexander) and his team. They are combative but we had some good opportunities and had chances to score in the second half.
“Any other time you come to Bradford and it’s a decent point but I’m disappointed because of the way we played.
“The team is performing to a really good level at the moment. We just didn’t kill the game off.
“You need to get a point where you can go again and score again. We will get to that point.”
Bradford were playing their first league game for 17 days after consecutive postponements.
They looked rusty and trailed when Harrison Biggins played Molyneux through to score on the stroke of half-time.
But Smith converted a cross from fellow substitute Harry Chapman to earn a point, five minutes from time.
Bradford manager Graham Alexander said: “Not playing for a couple of weeks could have been a potential problem but I don’t want us to take the easy option by blaming that.
“We train at a high intensity and know what’s expected of us when we go into games.
“It was a poor first half. We weren’t good at any level and we can’t afford to repeat that.
“We were just hoping to get to half-time to make a change to the mentality but unfortunately conceded a really poor goal. We gave ourselves a bit of a hole to get out of.
“We’ve been really good defensively for a long time but it was poor from our perspective.
“It’s hard for me to have a go at the team defensively because they’ve been superb. Even tonight, I don’t think Doncaster caused us a load of problems.
“But the response was good from the players. We still probably didn’t create the amount of chances that we needed to win the game but I think we certainly deserved the equaliser.
“It was a fantastic goal from Tyler. I think the point was a fair result but we obviously wanted more.”
Fulham 2-1 Brentford: Wilson's late brace seals comeback win
Harry Wilson scored twice in stoppage time as Fulham came back to beat Brentford 2-1 in an enthralling West London derby.
Wilson was the hero from Fulham's bench on Monday, as Marco Silva's team – who were on the wrong end of a late comeback against Everton last time out in the Premier League – salvaged a victory from the jaws of defeat.
Fulham will feel it was a win they earned from a match they dominated from the off, with the Bees having taken the lead against the run of play through Vitaly Janelt's stunning 24th-minute strike.
But the Fulham pressure finally told when Wilson rose high to flick in his first in the 92nd minute, and – after Bernd Leno made a superb stop to thwart Brentford at the other end – the former Liverpool midfielder nodded in again to send Craven Cottage into raptures.
Fulham's win takes them up into ninth, while Brentford drop to 12th after suffering a fifth league loss of the season.
Data Debrief: Super-sub Wilson to the rescue
Fulham will feel they deserved to come away from that match with three points, having had 26 shots, 12 of which were on target, in an incredibly dominant display.
They also had 46 touches in the opposition box compared to Brentford's nine, but they could not make those count, at least until Wilson's late intervention as he finally broke through Brentford's stubborn defence.
The Welshman scored with both of his shots on target, having three attempts overall, with his goals coming from a combined 0.19 expected goals.
The Bees looked sure to get a first away win, and first clean sheet, of the Premier League season until their late lapse in concentration, and they have now dropped 14 points from winning positions in the competition this season, more than any other team.
Neymar suffers fresh injury blow
Neymar sustained a new injury as he was forced off during Al-Hilal's AFC Champions League Elite win over Esteghlal.
Aleksandar Mitrovic plundered a hat-trick on Monday to seal a 3-0 win.
But Al-Hilal's victory was soured by an injury to Neymar, who had to make way just 29 minutes after he came on as a second-half substitute.
The Brazilian, who has just returned from over a year out of action following a serious knee injury, was forced off with what appeared to be a thigh issue.
Indeed, Monday's appearance was only the 32-year-old's second for Al-Hilal since his comeback.
He has featured just seven times for the Saudi Pro League champions in all competitions since his big-money move from Paris Saint-Germain in 2023.
Rodgers delighted as Celtic rout Aberdeen in semi-final
Celtic booked their place in the Scottish League Cup final after hammering Aberdeen 6-0 at Hampden Park on Saturday.
The 21-time winners of the tournament were inspired by a Daizen Maeda hat-trick in a near-perfect performance against the Scottish Premiership's second-placed side.
Manager Brendan Rodgers was delighted with the result and performance from his side.
"It was a testament to our players and the demands they have. They play every week in big games. We have to manage this group through every game," he told Premier Sports.
"It was up to us to decide the game and the players did that. They were brilliant today. We were more aggressive in the second half.
"Aberdeen have had an excellent season, they will continue to work well I'm sure."
The result was Aberdeen's first defeat in 17 matches in all competitions this season, with a 2-2 draw at Celtic Park last month the only time they had previously failed to win.
Cameron Carter-Vickers got the scoring under way with a header 29 minutes in, before the brilliant Maeda sat down goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov to set up Kyogo Furuhashi for a second three minutes later.
Maeda then got in on the act himself on 40 minutes before the game briefly descended into farce on the stroke of half-time, with Rodgers shown a yellow card for kicking away a ball that had gone out before slipping over.
"To be fair, I was raging because we had given the ball away," he said.
"I have my moments, like every manager. It was just the game, even though we were comfortable at 3-0.
"It was a deserved yellow card. The speed of the ball [was the issue]. I just wanted to keep the tempo of the game."
Celtic and Maeda picked up where they left off in the second half to make it 4-0 in the 50th minute before Nicolas Kuhn hammered in a fifth on the hour.
The rout was complete when Maeda wrapped up his hat-trick as he finished off a flowing attacking move with five minutes to go.
After the match, Rodgers continued to be effusive about his team, who will face either Rangers or Motherwell in the final.
"An outstanding team performance. You come up against a team that has been so, so good. We knew it would be a challenge," he told BBC Scotland.
"We had to bring our A-game and the players did that, in particular during the second half.
"We were ruthless. We worked the ball really well to create the space and made good runs.
"It's a beautiful pitch here at Hampden. It's perfect for the football we want to play."
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