Chesterfield v Doncaster Rovers: Grant McCann hoping to turn up the heat on leaders Walsall

The sides had been due to meet in Derbyshire on Saturday, but Rovers' FA Cup commitments - which see them host Crystal Palace in a televised fourth-round home tie on Monday - put paid to that.

It could have been played next week, giving Rovers three consecutive away matches, but they wanted to get ahead of the game to put pressure on the leaders. Whilst the original fixture list is proscribed in June, rearrangements have to be agreed between the clubs.

Before running into Bradford City a week and a half ago, Walsall were 12 points clear, but they have taken one from a possible nine. Rovers are second on the back of four straight victories, albeit the Saddlers will have two games in hand by Friday.

"When we looked at rescheduling it, we look at the most positive picture - can we win the next couple of games and put ourselves in a good position, then can we go to Chesterfield and win?" revealed manager McCann. "All of a sudden (if we do) we're four points behind Walsall, who had won the league (in some people's eyes) three weeks ago.

"There's always a little bit of madness in my thinking but we know we haven't done anything yet, we know we have to go to Chesterfield and tick off the next one, then keeping going game by game.

"The other date it gave us just didn't sit well with us. We'd got a couple of tough away games at Morecambe and Accrington where people think you can just turn up and win.

"We always look at certain aspects of when we play the fixture and I do know this group prefer playing game after game after game. We showed that in the second half of last season.

"We knew this fixture would be quite easy to arrange because we were meant to play Chesterfield on Saturday," said McCann. "All we've done is bring it forward a few days and they were fine with it.

"We initially went in with Wednesday, they came back with Thursday so we settled with Thursday.

"We can still get a bit of rest into the players and get our normal two-day lead-in to the Palace game. We've got to make sure we get these things right."

And now they have to get the football right against a side who are 10th in the table but won the reverse fixture 3-0.

"You hope you can get into a consistent run but it's not easy, especially coming up against what I feel is the best team that's played against us this season," said McCann, who has everyone bar Richard Wood fit. "I know they've been a wee bit up and down but they've got individuals in the team that can hurt you in a heartbeat and a really good manager so we're going to have to be the best prepared we've been all season.

"It's a hostile crowd, a localish derby and they get a serious amount of fans in there so it will be loud. We've got to be ready to take the game to them."