Dominic Iorfa says Sheffield Wednesday's performances rather than results give him home comforts

They will have to – almost certainly as soon as their next game there, against Hull City – for the Owls to have any chance of reaching the Championship play-offs.

From the outside, it looks as if their opportunity has been and gone but defender Iorfa believes that will only release the pressure on Wednesday and ramp it up for the teams they are hunting if they can recreate last season's strong kick to the finish line.

The Championship programme resumes at the weekend after a two-week break for international football.

The Owls restart at Cardiff City on Saturday, but four of their remaining eight games are at home, starting with an April 5 match against relegation-threatened Hull and taking in an Easter Monday visit from Middlesbrough, one of the teams they are looing to catch.

They are also still to play ninth-placed Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, scene of a memorable and vital 3-1 win last season.

Wednesday go into the final phase of the regular season six points outside the top-six places. If they miss out on them, as looks increasingly likely, their form at Hillsborough will be to blame.

Their away results are play-off standard, the fifth best in the division, but at home they are relegation candidates, only Hull having a worse record. They have not won at Hillsborough since their fifth victory of the campaign there, against Derby County on New Year's Day.

Performances have been better than that would suggest, having the majority of possession in every home game since and out-shooting Sheffield United, Coventry City, Luton Town and Bristol City without out-scoring any of them.

"If you weren't playing well and you're losing, I think that would be more hard to take," said the versatile Iorfa.

"It is frustrating when you're performing well and not picking up results but if we keep performing like that, keep making a lot of chances, you'd like to think results will come our way.

"It's definitely been a rollercoaster since last January but we came into this season with ambitions to be up there. Ideally we'd like to turn some of those (home) draws and losses into wins.

"As fans you can see progression on the pitch.

"We're in a decent position, we've still got a decent amount of games left to play.

"This year has been crazy. You look at some of the results and it's crazy but that's what makes the Championship good to watch.

"The main thing is just being consistent, avoiding as many defeats as you can."

Despite being 12th with eight matches left, the party line is that the Owls are not giving up hope of gatecrashing the play-offs.

Manager Danny Rohl has long maintained his target was simply to be "in touch" going into the final straight, and with only two wins to make up, he insists they have done that. In reality, Wednesday's goal difference leaves them with seven extra points needed.

Part of the Owls' confidence comes from the way they finished last season, taking 15 points from their final eight to escape relegation, part of it from the pressure those teams currently in the pound seats will be feeling.

"I think the position we're in is a good one, being the hunter instead of hunted," said Iorfa.

"We know we're battling for those (play-off) positions and there are a number of other teams as well. It's definitely going to be more pressure on the teams currently holding the positions because they're going to look behind them and think, 'Wow, we've got five or six teams all chasing us.'

"All we can do is hope to put a good run together, pick up as many wins as we can and just see what happens."

Iorfa played in all eight games after last March's international break, and the memories of that run will be fuelling him 12 months on.

"We've done it before," he argued. "Last year we didn't look too far ahead, we just took it game by game and it worked for us last year so hopefully if we do it again this year we can do the same thing.

"If we attack the last bit of the season, who knows what can happen?

"It's just taking it game by game, that's what we did last year and it worked for us."

Even if the Owls do fall short of the play-offs, there are still significant targets to play for.

Only once since reaching back-to-back play-offs in 2016 and 2017 have they finished in the top half of the Championship, and then only 12th, in 2018-19. Improving on that underwhelming record would represent significant progress for a side who were fighting relegation last season, on the back of two years in League One.