The hope, then the familiar failing, then the after-match blast ... the story of Rotherham United 2 Bolton Wanderers 2

After Rotherham United had harmed their survival chances yet again by failing to keep a lead, Matt Hamshaw didn't hold back.

Let's just say the players got a bit of an earful.

“You might have heard me through this wall,” he said a few minutes later as he spoke to journalists about how his bottom-four side had given up a two-goal lead against promotion-contending opposition and had to settle for a solitary point when three had been there for taking.

“Look, I have a side of me that some people don't see very often, but it has to come out. Then we'll pick them up, look at it and work on it. I'm just fed up with the same messages, the same videos, the same ‘get tight’ instructions.”

The manager believes he and his staff are saying the saying the right things before and during matches and his young team aren't able to follow orders.

“They went off the game plan,” he reckoned.

That plan had brought a 2-0 interval advantage against Bolton Wanderers at AESSEAL New York Stadium in Saturday's lunch-time kick-off. It had also, fleetingly, brought the prospect of the Millers escaping League One's drop zone before the afternoon's later round of fixtures.

The first half had been fairly even - Rotherham's nip to the Trotters' tuck - until a sudden burst of life from the home team as the break approached.

Joe Powell crossed. Bolton dithered. Sam Nombe didn't. 1-0.

Ar'Jany Martha spotted Nombe. A precision pass. A precision finish. 2-0.

And all this against quality opposition seeking to stretch their unbeaten run to 12 matches. Wanderers' best starting 11 of the season, said the chap from the Bolton News, certainly the best bench. The last part of his sentence would prove to be painfully prophetic.

“I'll be honest, I didn't think we were great in the first half,” Hamshaw said. “I thought we looked like we had a lack of confidence. Then we get the first goal and you see the confidence come back - everybody wants to have a touch.”

The boss was talking in a small room just off the players' tunnel that abutted the changing quarters. His voice had lost its anger of moments earlier, but his face betrayed how he was feeling as he addressed the second-half shortcomings.

“We didn't press high enough,” he said. “I thought we just retreated to halfway line. And when you do that, you cause yourself problems against a good team who want to play football. Then Bolton started hitting a lot of ‘diags’ and I thought that we didn't win enough first contacts.

“A bit of naivety in midfield showed up. Brandon (Cover) obviously isn't a central midfield player, Ar'jany is arguably not a central midfield player. We kind of lost it in those areas and we didn't have the options to change that on the bench.”

He thought of the injuries that have blighted the campaign: “You could say, if I was bringing on Dan Gore, Shaun McWilliams and Kian Spence, it'd be a different outcome. But we don't have that.”

Wanderers made substitutions at the interval that changed the match. On came Celtic loanee Johnny Kenny - a Rotherham target last season - and Kyle Dempsey and the pair punched holes in Rotherham's backline.

Soon after the restart, Dempsey's corner wasn't dealt with and Chris Forino was the close-range beneficiary as he stabbed the ball over the line. “Three (missed) first contacts,” Hamshaw complained.

With seven minutes to go, Kenny skipped past Lenny Agbaire to provide the cross from which the unmarked Sam Dalby nodded in the equaliser, and it needed a stoppage-time save from the excellent Ted Cann to prevent total red-and-white heartache.

Back to those unheeded ‘get tight’ instructions …

“You look at Bolton's defenders, Sam Nombe and Harry Gray are never really allowed to breathe,” said Hamshaw. “I think we just give opportunities away. That's the naivety within our group.

“We've got young defenders. We need to learn and learn quicker. We have to be better. We should be winning headers, we should be a lot more aggressive. Their second goal was such schoolboy kind of stuff. We had the ball in their corner, one long ball over, we drop off and don't get tight with three men in the box. Not acceptable.”

The visitors' comeback had a sorry air of inevitability. Too often this season, Rotherham have taken the lead and failed to hold on to their advantage.

That weakness is one of a number of factors that could take them into League Two, and empty seats at New York were as much down to fans' disillusionment as to the fact that the contest was being shown on TV.

Hamshaw returned to the subject of the heated post-match inquest: “Everybody's allowed their opinion, whether you're experienced or inexperienced. That's how you want to build an elite environment.

“You want people to feel part of it, You want people to have their input. But, then, the big thing is, it's all right talking, we have to carry it out. At times, we do that really, really well, and, at times, we switch off. Sometimes with younger players, that's what you get.

“We're quite open and transparent. I'll not go too much into what gets said in there.”

He didn't have to. It was a thin wall. We'd heard. The dressing-room dressing-down had been brutal.

If only the Millers had been on the attack in that depressing second half as much as the manager was afterwards.

Rotherham (3-5-2): Ted Cann; Lenny Agbaire (Emmanuel Adegboyega 89), Zak Jules, Jamal Baptiste; Joe Rafferty (Josh Benson 59), Brandon Cover, Joe Powell, Ar'Jany Martha (Duncan Watmore 79), Reece James; Sam Nombe, Harry Gray (Gabriele Biancheri 89). Subs not used: Cameron Dawson, Lino Sousa, Jack Holmes.

Bolton (4-2-3-1): Jack Bonham; Jordi Osei-Tutu (Cyrus Christie 67), Chris Forino, George Johnston, Max Conway (Rob Apter 79); Josh Sheehan, Ethan Erhahon (Kyle Dempsey H-T); Mason Burstow, Ruben Rodrigues (Johnny Kenny H-T), Corey Blackett-Taylor (Thierry Gale 21); Sam Dalby. Subs not used: David Harrington, Xavier Simons.

Goals: Nombe 38, 42 (Rotherham); Forino 51, Dalby 83 (Bolton)

Referee: James Oldham (Derbyshire)

Attendance: 9,348 (2,067)