Barnsley came within ten minutes of ending Nottingham Forest's 15-month unbeaten home run in league matches, but eventually had to settle for a 2-2 draw. Forest got back into the game at two goals down with a controversial penalty which boss Mark Robins felt was outside the area.

Robins said: "Adam (Hammill) has certainly switched off, got the wrong side and reacted late, but the contact was outside of the box. The players tell me it was outside.

"The game changed on that incident and we feel aggrieved that we have not taken all three points and been the first side to win at The City Ground in a long time.

"Before the game, and having played the way we have in the last few games, I would have settled for a point, but the way we set about the game we were good value for the two-goal lead we had.

"We were fairly comfortable and did very well in the game. We did exactly what we intended to do but it's galling that when we come to big clubs those big game-changing decisions go against us.

"We worked really hard all over the pitch but you have to against a side like Forest. I saw them in the week and they did a job on Derby County.

"We knew we would have to be strong against them, which we were, but we were also creative at times and created a number of chances."

Forest boss Billy Davies was simply pleased to salvage a point.

He said: "Our performance was very flat. We didn't deserve anything with the way we went about our business. I think we were still suffering from the aftermath of our last game and one or two heads were still on that game.

"I'm delighted to have got something and at the end of it all it's a great point.

"We defended badly for both of their goals. We plotted our own downfall by the way we went about things.

"We just didn't play with the energy that has got us where we are, we didn't play with enthusiasm and we were not our usual selves today.

"It was always a concern after being on such a high after beating our local rivals, considering the energy we used and the psychological effect it had.

"We tried to freshen things up, we tried to gee the players up and warn them against complacency. We told the players about the need to go and raise our game against Barnsley and make sure we did the right things.

"But we did the opposite in the opening 45 minutes. Our energy was poor and so was our play and at 2-0 down we had got what we deserved."