Matt Hamshaw in defiant mood as he assesses Rotherham United's bid to stay up

Matt Hamshaw today made a League One survival rallying cry in the build-up to Rotherham United's Yorkshire derby with Huddersfield Town this weekend.

But that doesn't mean that the manager wouldn't be happy with a share of the spoils against play-off-chasing opposition as he seeks to keep the Millers in the third tier in his first full season in charge.

Rotherham head to the Accu Stadium for the lunch-time kick-off in 22nd spot to take on a big-spending side who are only one place outside the top six.

“There'll also be games where we need to go away from home and nick a point,” Hamshaw said immediately after his victories statement. “We'll see how the game plays out on Saturday.

“We want to try to go there and win, but first and foremost we don't want to go there and lose. Every point is going to be key from now to the end of the season.”

A win and a draw in their last two outings have seen the Millers reduce the margin between them and safety from five points to two and they will finally have a free midweek after the Terriers test following a run of six matches in 18 days.

“We've closed that gap markedly from this time last week,” the boss said. “ We've got to make sure that we're not in that position where it gets too big and it's going to be a huge uphill challenge.

“Four points from two games is good. We've gone through patches of not picking up points when we probably should have. That's been for a number of reasons - some (refereeing) decisions, some injuries, some fatigue.”

Ah, fatigue ... it's forced Hamshaw to limit the game time of some of his players despite being short of options as the number of missing men has touched double figures yet again

“You want to rotate your squad as much as you can, but you have to have numbers to be able to do that and we haven't had that luxury,” he said.

“I started Duncan Watmore on Tuesday night (in the 0-0 draw with Mansfield Town). I felt like it might have been a step too far and it proved to be the case when he came off at half-time. He'd given us a good 45 minutes.

“I've been a player. Fatigue sometimes don't kick in when you're winning games. But when you lose games, people feel it a little bit more.

“It has been a brutal run of games and the squad's been stretched, I think that, going into this run of games, we had four injuries. We've now potentially got 10 and we feel like a little bit back to where we were when we were in those bad periods.”

Rotherham have recorded successive clean sheets and conceded only once in their three contests. Against that, they've hit the net only twice in their last half-a-dozen outings.

Despite their obvious qualities, Sam Nombe hasn't scored in open play since January 17, Harry Gray is goalless in six games and deadline-day arrival Watmore is still waiting to open his account.

Hamshaw acknowledged: “We have to take our chances when they come.”

Yet the manager maintained his defiant mood as he declared that he and his men have enough about them to make sure that Rotherham are still a third-tier club next season

“You've only got to feel the mood around the training ground,” he said. “It'd be dead easy for everybody to be down in the dumps and feel like it's not going for us.

“But I haven't got that mindset, I've never had that mindset, I never will have that mindset.”