Nottinghamshire have work to do on the final day of their LV= County Championship match against Durham at Trent Bridge.
Facing a first innings deficit of 151, Notts reached stumps on 145-5, still six runs away from making the visitors bat again.
Durham had earlier extended their first innings to a score of 471, with Will Smith eventually being dismissed for 153.
Michael Lumb stood firm for Notts, reaching stumps on 77 not out.
Mick Newell knows that Lumb – and the remaining batsmen – have plenty of work to try and gather a draw from the contest.
“We still need a lot of runs tomorrow and we need to bat for a lot of overs,” he said. “We’ve only batted for 42 overs so far but we knew we’d have to bat for around a hundred or a hundred and ten overs if we were going to save the match and that’s an awful lot of batting still to be done.”
The director of cricket felt that there were areas that could be improved upon from both the bowling and the batting aspects.
“It was a combination of both really,” said Newell. “It’s always disappointing when the tailenders bat for so long and it makes the wicket look fairly placid - and then we can’t survive on it - and I think one or two of our top order have got to ask themselves some questions as to their application and to where their game currently stands.”
After extending their seventh-wicket partnership to exactly 50 Durham lost Phil Mustard in the sixth over of the morning, edging Stuart Broad through to Chris Read.
Mustard’s replacement, Gareth Breese, had an early scare when a direct hit from Ed Cowan had him scuttling to make his ground. There was a further alarm when the next ball was drilled back in the air towards the right of Graeme Swann, who could get nothing more than a finger-tip on it.
Smith’s monumental effort finally came to an end after more than eight and a half hours at the crease. The opener (153) used his feet to advance towards Samit Patel but could only clip the ball to mid on where Luke Fletcher took an excellent diving catch.
Breese, the former West Indian international, playing his first championship match since May 2010, made 44 before falling lbw to the first delivery of a new spell from Broad.
Graeme Onions (26) and Mark Wood (58 not out) shared in a last wicket stand of 70 before Steven Mullaney returned to claim his second wicket of the innings.
Wood’s fifty had come from just 62 balls and included a couple of mighty sixes, one off Patel and one off Mullaney.
151 behind on first innings Notts needed a solid start but were immediately rocked by the departure of Alex Hales (0) emphatically losing his middle stump to Chris Rushworth.
Michael Lumb and Ed Cowan steadied the ship with a stand of 76 for the second wicket but Wood’s day became even better when he came on to bowl.
In quick succession he had Cowan (35) caught behind, James Taylor (1) lbw and Patel (4) caught at slip after fencing off a sharply-rising delivery.
Mullaney (20) added 43 with Lumb before nicking Breese into the hands of Collingwood.
Lumb reached his fifty (57 balls, 10x4) and had the company of Luke Fletcher (3 not out) for the closing few overs.