Hollywood opponents, a horror-movie start and the fightback that wasn't quite enough ... the story of Rotherham United 0 Wrexham 1

Sixteen seconds later, cut!

The match against the team with film-star owners wasn't going at all well for Rotherham United.

Not a single one of their players had touched the ball and already they were behind.

It wasn't quite the fastest goal ever seen at AESSEAL New York Stadium but it wasn't far off.

Opponents Wrexham – from National League to League Two to League One and intent on rising further – had turned up with momentum, a bumper away following, a willingness to compete and a propensity for time-wasting.

What they had turned up without was their famous backers, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who were engaged elsewhere, but the ‘Hollywood’ tag goes everywhere with the Welsh club dubbed the ‘Harlem Globetrotters’ by Millers manager Steve Evans.

For the home side, it was a horror movie of a start. For five minutes, they were nowhere while Phil Parkinson's visitors were everywhere.

Then it all changed.

By Saturday's final whistle, Rotherham had played well enough to win. Only they hadn't won, they hadn't scored and the early-bird defeat had ended their unbeaten four-match league run and dropped them a place in the table to 16th.

“We played forward, we played really well,” Evans said. “We just lacked that killing edge in the final third and penalty box.

“There are some honest lads in that away dressing room – a couple of them have played for me in the past – who have just walked by me and said: ‘How have we won that?’

“They've won because they showed great resolve. That's what Phil has built there.”

Before the break, as the Millers went in search of an equaliser, Joe Rafferty shot just wide and delivered a superb cross that Hakeem Odoffin's outstretched boot missed by only a whisker.

Joe Powell's free-kick glanced off the head of a visiting player and the width of a post prevented a own goal before Jamie McCart's follow-up from an angle was deflected off target.

Just as many films have a villain, this match had one too. Referee Ben Atkinson's first-half display was strewn with errors and he'll be forever grateful that Evans was out of earshot in the West Stand, sitting alongside chairman Tony Stewart, because of a touchline ban.

The boss was still settling into his seat when Wrexham went in front, McCart fatally deciding against challenging Ollie Palmer who was left to free up Ryan Barnett's for a right-wing cross that had Paul Mullin's name written all over it.

“We've paid the price for the opening five minutes, which weren't us,” Evans said. “Straight from the kick-off we don't compete for the first ball. It was launched forward, which is what Phil's teams do. It's then a good ball in, to be fair, and Mullin does what Mullin does.

“We had nearly 70 per cent possession, 17 goal attempts, numerous corners, numerous free-kicks, numerous bad decisions as well but it wasn't about the referee today. Wrexham have found a way to win a game that we should win.”

All of the Welsh club's glamour is off the pitch. On it, they're functional, dogged, organised, a bit one-paced with the exception of the division's fleet-footed top assists man, Barnett.

They're not in the same class as Birmingham City.

After the interval, the Millers continued to push for a leveller. Mallik Wilks did the hard work by beating his man but then fired into the side-netting, Odoffin headed over and Wilks was denied by Eoghan O'Connell's goal-saving block.

Sam Nombe matched Atkinson in the villainy stakes by spurning the contest's best opportunity, turning and firing wide with only goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo to beat.

Evans didn't hide his frustration: “Strikers at the top level in this league score the goal and you're back in the game. I think that if we'd got one, we'd have gone on to win the game.”

At the other end, keeper Cameron Dawson clung on to Dan Scarr's header and produced the save of the afternoon, diving low and at full stretch to deny Mullin who had been set up by New York old boy Ollie Rathbone.

Rotherham, playing an attacking 4-3-3 formation, kept knocking on a door they couldn't open and Cohen Bramall's free-kick, pushed away by Okonkwo, was their final act.

“We went 4-3-3 and the subs who came on were wingers,” Evans said. “We looked dangerous and gave Wrexham lots of problems.

“If there's a criticism of the boys it's that our final ball wasn't on the money. Sometimes the delivery is only as good as the movement in the box.

“I left my chairman in the directors' box with seconds to go and he just said to me: ‘It's been a brilliant performance but sadly the wrong result.’ He summed it up perfectly.”

Good rather than brilliant maybe.

Thus, second-placed Hollywood gang Globetrotted back to Wales with all three points, leaving the Millers rueing yet another game this term that hadn't delivered the rewards it should have done.

And that, my friends, is a wrap.

Rotherham (4-3-3): Cameron Dawson; Joe Rafferty, Cameron Humphreys, Jamie McCart, Reece James (Jack Holmes 56); Hakeem Odoffin (Joe Hungbo 70), Christ Tiehi, Joe Powell; Mallik Wilks (Jordan Hugill 78), Sam Nombe, Cohen Bramall. Subs not used: Dillon Phillips, Liam Kelly, Alex MacDonald, Shaun McWilliams.

Wrexham (3-5-2): Arthur Okonkwo; Eoghan O'Connell, Dan Scarr, Tom O'Connor; Ryan Barnett, Andy Cannon (Ollie Rathbone 62), George Dobson, Elliot Lee, James McLean; Ollie Palmer (Steven Fletcher 70), Paul Mullin. Subs not used: Callum Burton, Lewis Brunt, Luke Bolton, Mo Faal, Seb Revan.

Goals: Mullin 1 (Wrexham).

Referee: Ben Atkinson (London).

Attendance: 11,235 (2,356).