WITH an ex-Fame Academy partner in Pippa Fulton, striker Clayton Donaldson must know a good tune when he hears it.

And after marking his return to the Crewe starting XI with a two-goal salvo that salvaged a point against lowly Barnet, he remains convinced the proverbial fat lady has yet to sing a requiem for Crewe's campaign.

"We've got 12 games left, so we'd probably have to win most of them, perhaps 10 of them," he mused.

"But it's not over until it's over. I'm a great believer in that and while there's still a possibility of getting into the play-offs, we go for it."

While Saturday's disappointing draw may not have sounded the last post for Crewe's slim play-off ambitions, they are getting more anorexic by the week.

They faded away so badly on Saturday after failing to capitalise on Donaldson's well-taken early strike that a second-half renaissance of sorts didn't stifle the final whistle boo-boys.

In the final analysis, Crewe's dreadful home form will count against them so there seems little prospect of them improving much above their current 15th placing.

'Fortress Gresty' the Alexandra Stadium certainly isn't, with fives wins out of 17 just not good enough to lay any sort of foundation for a top-half push.

It all started brightly enough after some lively early Barnet attacking was swatted away, leaving Donaldson to stride down the middle and outpace the creaking limbs of veteran centre-half Gary Breen before placing, rather than firing, his shot into the bottom corner.

But that 13th-minute opener proved to be something of a false dawn as Barnet were by far and away the most inventive of the sides on a surface showing the ravages of the winter's severe weather.

Micah Hyde nearly poked home a swift equaliser, before Irish striker John O'Flynn produced an eye-catching finish to draw his side level on 23 minutes.

Granted, he profited from a slip by Harry Worley, which gave him room to cut in from the right flank, but the curling shot into the far corner was way above this game's quality.

Then, six minutes later, Crewe failed to clear their lines, allowing the ball to be relayed back out of the box for Matt Lockwood.

The experienced left-back, on loan from Colchester, crashed a deflected shot past Steve Phillips for a second goal the visitors fully merited.

Shaun Miller blazed over on the turn as the half closed to grumbling from a sparse crowd.

While some Alex fans might doubt Dario Gradi's ability to fire up his troops in adversity, Donaldson revealed that the interim boss was perfectly capable of dishing out the hairdryer stuff.

"Dario gave us a bit of a rollicking at half-time and that had an effect in the second half," he said.

"We've had good results away from home, where we have more space to attack, but here teams come like Barnet did, playing a 4-5-1 formation.

"It's hard and a lot of them are not as bad as people think. Barnet got themselves back into the game and made it difficult for us.

"We've been working on breaking teams down in training, but I'm not sure whether we've cracked that yet."

While maybe not in open play, Crewe can always count on a threat from Ashley Westwood's set plays.

The youngster takes a mean free-kick, in fact so much so that you wonder why the message has not sunk in with some opponents.

After flashing an effort onto the far post, Westwood was offered dead ball shies at Jake Cole's goal on no fewer than three occasions.

Hyde, belying years of experience, brought down Miller and Byron Moore in full flight, but Cole palmed Westwood's first effort around the post and the second curled agonisingly wide.

Although, Gradi had beefed up the front line with Moore coming on for Simon Walton, the Alex were still struggling for a breakthrough.

Yet when Hyde erred again – this time with a reckless tackle from behind on Joel Grant – inspiration finally arrived via a training ground routine.

Instead of shooting, Westwood slipped the ball into Grant's feet and the winger's neat lay-off by-passed defenders, allowing Donaldson to side-foot home the equaliser.

Gradi, saluting what was a rare piece of invention, revealed: "We do practice that one. Joel was in the right position for it and it was a lovely little lay-off.

"The players were having a go and trying to make things happen as that showed, although the supporters got frustrated.

"We were better in the second half, but it was not easy to play on that pitch – although I'm not using that as an excuse as it was the same for both sides."