Portsmouth promotion watch: Barnsley boss hoping Doncaster can do his side a favour against Luton and Sunderland
The Tykes were held to a goalless draw against Rovers in front of the Sky Sports cameras on Friday night.
And Pompey took full advantage of that slip-up to close the gap on second place to four points with a 2-0 victory over Scunthorpe.
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Hide AdThird-placed Sunderland’s 2-1 win against Walsall also cut the deficit to the automatic promotion places to two points.
The race for the Championship is still wide open and Doncaster have a part of play in who could finish in the top two.
Grant McCann’s side travel to leaders Luton on Saturday before visiting the Black Cats on April 19.
Stendel was happy with Barnsley’s performance against play-off chasing Donny.
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Hide AdAnd the Tykes boss wants Rovers to deliver a similar performance against the Hatters and Sunderland.
He told the Yorkshire Post: ‘I was very proud of the performance of my team.
‘Okay, we can play better, but we had four players injured and two suspended and Jordan Williams, Zeki Fryers and Victor Adeboyejo have played maybe one or two games this year.
‘We needed them to come in for this game and in the first half, Doncaster played well with so much pressure and we had a bit of luck to get us through.
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Hide Ad‘In the second half, we controlled the game and deserved to take a point.
‘We hope Doncaster play this well against the other top teams.’
Meanwhile, Lee Bowyer felt Charlton had a goal wrongly disallowed after being held to a goalless stalemate at Bristol Rovers.
Josh Cullen tapped in Lyle Taylor’s cross just before half-time, while Alex Jakubiak suffered the same fate for the Gas in the second period.
The Addicks sit fifth and are four points behind Pompey.
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Hide AdBowyer told londonnewsonline.co.uk: ‘I’ve not looked at their one, there’s no point. Our one was onside.
‘I said to fourth official at half-time walking off that it’s onside but again it’s a big decision that’s not gone our way.
“Obviously, we go into every game wanting to win and we’re leaving disappointed because we haven’t one.
‘The conditions were so difficult. This is quite an open ground and the wind was unbelievable on another day we could have won it but we come away with a good point really.
‘They’ve been doing well recently, winning three on the spin, so it’s not a bad point.’