Harper crowns Royals' progress

Although they will probably have to win the play-offs to achieve it, consecutive promotions, and Premiership football for Berkshire, remains a clear possibility for Reading after an impressive 3-0 home win over Rotherham United.

All the goals came in the first half of the Royals' fifth victory in a row, which kept them in third place in the First Division. James Harper, Andy Hughes and Nicky Forster scored to make the second half a formality. "We have not given up on catching Portsmouth or Leicester," Reading's confident manager Alan Pardew declared. "At the break I told the players to drop deeper in the second half. It was more important to secure the three points than keep charging forward."

Lots of charging forward at the City Ground, though. Perhaps the imminent arrival of Darren Huckerby was on the mind of Nottingham Forest's Marlon Harewood when he scored a hat-trick in 15 first-half minutes, and four goals before the break, as his side thrashed bottom-of-the-table Stoke City 6-0 to move up to fourth place. "We have been threatening to do that to sides and never quite managed it," the Forest manager, Paul Hart, said.

Sixth-placed Wolves kept themselves in the play-off frame with a 2-0 win at Preston, Kenny Miller striking his ninth goal in seven games, but Sheffield United's jitters continued. They lost 1-0 at home to Norwich City and had Wayne Quinn and Peter Ndlovu sent off either side of Paul McVeigh's winner. "When you play a Neil Warnock side it's not going to be pretty," Nigel Worthington, the Canaries' manager, said, "but the players competed well in every department. That's our best three points of the season."

The Blades are not the only play-off hopefuls struggling. Ipswich Town had to wait until the 89th minute at Portman Road for Darren Bent's second goal of the game to earn a point from a 2-2 draw with Grimsby. They were booed off. "It was our poorest 90 minutes since I have been with the club," manager Joe Royle said. And Watford's away form continues to betray them, they lost 2-0 at Walsall.

Still, so tightly bunched are the mid-table sides that a few wins can harden play-off prospects. Burnley's 2-0 win over Derby County at Turf Moor lifted the Clarets from 16th place to 11th, seven points below sixth with a game in hand. Coventry, Crystal Palace and Millwall all had compelling arguments for optimism but foundered yesterday. Andy Gray's 12th goal of the season set Bradford on their way to a 2-0 defeat win over the Sky Blues. "If you stop Gary McAllister you stop Coventry," Nicky Law, the Bantams manager announced. "Jamie Lawrence did a magnificent job on him today."

Crystal Palace were held to a goalless draw at home by Sheffield Wednesday, the point lifting the Owls off the bottom. "There were a few players still feeling sorry for themselves over our [FA Cup] defeat against Leeds last week," Trevor Francis, the Palace manager, reckoned.

And Tony Rougier, on his loan debut from Reading, scored the game's only goal as Brighton beat visitors Millwall for a third win in three matches, earning the three points that lifted them out of the bottom three. "The aim is to leave Brighton in a better position than when I arrived," Rougier promised.