When a game, and team performance, shifts so markedly in the space of just half-time, you could be left wondering ‘what changed?’. For Rovers, there was no such conundrum, simply the ability to get their best two attacking players on the pitch at the same time.

You could question why did it take that to spark them into life? Yet so often they are Rovers’ spark.

While Ben Brereton may have spent the previous 10 days carrying the weight of a nation’s World Cup hopes on his shoulders, his latest rescue mission was to get a Rovers side without a goal in over 10 hours of football away from home, and only one first half goal in 16 matches, back firing.

Bradley Dack was his partner in crime, as although just back from a second long-term injury, he remains the go-to man, even if he’s still striving for march sharpness.

Where Brereton took on the mantle of Adam Armstrong after he stepped up following Dack’s injury, there has been no such emergence in the time the Chilean has been out.

The pair went through a separate warm-up to the rest of the Rovers substitutes within minutes of the half-time whistle. The team had changed in personnel with the double alteration, but also in approach and mindset.

For a spell in the second half, it was as good as Rovers have produced as an attacking unit for several months.

The whole feel of the game had shifted, Dack was showing the hunger to get into the areas where goals are scored that Rovers have lacked.

Inside a minute of his arrival he nodded home a John Buckley, a 50th Rovers goal and first since his injury return.

Brereton was showing his fleet of foot playing from the left, and with their arrival also sparking Rovers into life, Buckley looking better in a deeper role and Lewis Travis snapping into tackles, they were able to build periods of momentum that weren’t previously there.

When Scott Wharton sent the away into delirium when heading in a Rothwell corner, Rovers were eight minutes of normal time away from a priceless win. Additional time proved to be its own chapter we will come to later.

In the first half Rovers had looked timid, a lack of options for the man in possession and the commitment to a back three looked to be hampering them as despite the extra defensive body, they looked wide open.

A huge disparity between the sides in the opening half was the number of options available to the man in possession.

Rovers were given a short-lived reprieve when Matt Godden felt he had been tripped in the box by the recovery run of Jan Paul van Hecke when played clean through.

Yet from the very same run from the next attack, Callum O’Hare was the attacker this time, and while Harry Pickering did his best to get back and cover, he inadvertently turned the ball beyond the helpless Thomas Kaminski.

Gus Hamer then clipped the outside of the post with a shot after Joe Rankin-Costello was robbed of possession when trying to dribble the ball out of defence, then, from a free kick conceded by van Hecke who struggled to come to terms with Viktor Gyokeres in the first half, Hamer tested Kaminski who was equal to it.

A tame Sam Gallagher shot straight at Stuart Moore was as much as Rovers could muster in a lifeless first half.

Yet from the moment Dack drew them level inside a minute of the second half, with his first touch, the whole complexion of the game changed.

It changed back as the clock ticked towards the 90th minute, Coventry now having to force the issue, their cause buoyed by the six additional minutes.

Treatment issued to Ryan Nyambe and Rothwell was always likely to see that extended, and it would see Rovers would have a greater complaint at the six minutes that were first allocated, rather than the extra ones that were played.

Coventry boss Mark Robins was critical of the perceived ‘gamesmanship’ of Rovers in added time, yet there seems to be an increasingly fine line between that and ‘game-management’.

Rovers were seconds away from seeing out what would have been a ‘professional job’.

Nyambe was clearly in need of treatment, and had Rovers had another substitute to make then the Namibian would have been drawn.

That could potentially have been crucial, the defender, playing almost on one leg, unable to get his body in strong enough to stop the powerful figure of Gyokeres getting on the end of Fankaty Dabo’s cross to send the home fans into raptures, one minute short of a century played.

Coventry have dealt in late goals, 71 per cent of their goals coming after the break, 16 of those in the final 15 minutes, nine in injury time.

When the final whistle arrived, Rovers were out on their feet, so close had they come to what would have been a crucial three points.

Others around them continue to be as inconsistent, yet their 130-day stay in the top six is increasingly under threat. Yet the fact that this would have been only a third win in 12 matches goes to show that things haven’t been that rosy elsewhere.

Though where previously Rovers were finding ways to win, they’ve become masters of somehow finding ways of not. It’s a tide they must turn in their favour, though there were enough signs in the second half that they can get back to their top form.

The biggest concern is that Dack is unlikely to be able to manage more than 45 minutes for at least a little while yet, and there are still questions about the make-up of the side.

Rovers have proven the ability to put together the run that will be required to make the top six. If they can do it under this pressure will be the biggest question to answer.

By the time they kick a ball their 130-day stay in the top six could be over, but their hopes of a play-off finish wouldn’t be.