When Boro lost at home to Coventry on 25 November, they were 10 points behind the Sky Blues with Kim Hellberg waiting in the wings to replace Rob Edwards after his acrimonious departure to Wolves.
But while Frank Lampard’s side have stuttered in the months since that game, Boro have been flying.
Their last defeat by Derby County on New Year’s Day left them nine adrift of Coventry, but since then they have six straight wins, scoring 15 goals.
And perhaps most tellingly for their promotion rivals, they have won games in different ways but with confidence growing with each consecutive triumph.
Here they needed goalkeeper Sol Brynn to make good saves from Gustavo Hamer and Andre Brooks in the opening quarter of an hour.
But even then, Boro’s football was still good enough to create plenty of chances going forward themselves, with McGree and Morgan Whittaker passing up good opportunities to score.
The pair played a part in a fine team goal with Australian McGree slipping a ball into the path of Conway, who confidently shot across Michael Cooper as the Scotland forward made it four goals in his last four games.
There could have been a second as their fluidity caused the home side a host of problems but McGree and Hayden Hackney were narrowly off target.
The all-important second did arrive though on the stroke of half-time, with captain Hackney driving forward from midfield. His deflected shot struck the base of the post and bounced up perfectly for McGree, who was following in, to head the rebound into an empty net and create a cushion that they would not give up.
