IN the week that marked the 100th anniversary of Middlesbrough's iconic Transporter Bridge, the town's footballers went one better and broke a 101-year record for the longest unbeaten start to a league season.

Not, however, that you'll find Tony Mowbray particularly keen to celebrate the achievement. Just as the Transporter spans the gulf between the banks of the Tees, so Middlesbrough's manager is desperate to bridge the divide separating his team from the promised land of the Premier League. Only when that gap is traversed will a rewriting of the history books mean anything significant.

"If we finish the season really well and achieve our goals, then it will have been a great season with some records broken along the way," said Mowbray, after his side made it 11 games without defeat with a 1-1 draw with Millwall. "But at the moment, it doesn't mean much.

"I genuinely don't put much stock in breaking those sort of records. To put things in context, if you were someone like Graeme Souness playing for Middlesbrough in 1974 in the top division, you're not looking at Middlesbrough now in the Championship thinking, 'Phaw, they're going to break a record'.

"We're in the wrong league. If we go ten games unbeaten in the Premier League in a few years time then it'll be right to talk about breaking records then. Yet it's good for the group to stay unbeaten and win football games."

And right there is another reason why the reaction to this weekend's record breaking has been rather more muted than it might have been. Not only are Middlesbrough playing in the 'wrong league' following 2009's relegation, they are also struggling to record victories.

Saturday's draw made it just one win from six home games this season, a record that tempers at least some of the enthusiasm that has accompanied a start that is nevertheless hugely impressive when assessed in the context of last season's struggles.

The latest stalemate, which resulted in Boro slipping out of the automatic promotion places at the top of the Championship table, flagged up much that is good and bad about their play at the moment.

In the credit column, the Teessiders strung together a succession of incisive passing moves, were competitive and well-organised throughout and generally defended impressively against a Millwall side as physical as any in the league.

On a more negative note, however, they failed to take their chances to kill off the game, lacked game-changing attacking alternatives from the substitutes' bench and conceded a sloppy equalising goal from a set play.

It is hard to be too harsh on a side that have still not lost a league game since mid-April, but while previous home draws against Ipswich and Leicester felt like creditable outcomes, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that this was two points dropped.

Leading through Barry Robson's fourth goal of the season, a crisp strike into the corner following a lay off from Julio Arca, Boro enjoyed a half-hour spell of almost complete control. Yet apart from an instinctive Scott McDonald strike that rebounded off the crossbar, they had nothing to show for their dominance.

McDonald, with only one goal to his name all season, is going through one of those spells when nothing is going right for him, and while Marvin Emnes' goalscoring form thus far has been a revelation, he is currently shouldering a huge burden. If the Dutchman fails to fire, and he has never been an out-and-out striker, Boro generally lack a cutting edge.

"The goals will come for us," countered Robson. "We are playing all right and creating chances, we are just not sticking them in the net at the moment. There is no panic from anyone.

"We're only 11 games into the season, we're right up there in the table and we're not too bothered about the goals because they're in us. You can see we are creating chances and looking dangerous, we just need to be a bit more clinical."

Nevertheless, when chances are being spurned, a side is always susceptible to an improvement from the opposition, and that is exactly what happened here.

Millwall's 54th-minute equaliser was fortuitous, with Liam Trotter's flicked header hitting an unsighted Rhys Williams on the shoulder and rebounding into the net, but the visitors went on to produce a 15-minute spell that had Middlesbrough rocking.

With Jason Steele still feeling his way back to form on his first appearance of the season, Millwall enjoyed some joy with long balls into the box, and Darius Henderson should probably have done better with a back-post header he directed wide.

To Middlesbrough's credit, though, they rode out the storm, and substitute Faris Haroun almost grabbed a winner with a stoppage-time header that struck the outside of the post.

"I think we're all aware that we need to win more home games," said Mowbray. "We remain unbeaten, but we've had too many draws. But I'm sure as the season unfolds, we'll have a spell where we string together five or six wins on the bounce."