Brian Barry-Murphy hails ‘great point’ as Cardiff deny Huddersfield

Cardiff boss Brian Barry-Murphy hailed his players’ mentality as they took another step towards automatic promotion by snatching a late 1-1 draw away to Huddersfield.

Yousef Salech headed home from Callum Robinson’s flick-on in the sixth minute of added time to cancel out Ryan Ledson’s first-half opener just a few minutes after Marcus McGuane had a shot tipped onto the bar at the other end.

Barry-Murphy said: “I think it’s a great point in the circumstances. We have to accept we weren’t at our best this evening – we put a lot into Saturday (beating Bolton 2-0), and I think that probably took its toll.

“So it’s really pleasing, for the amount of supporters we had behind that goal, to get to celebrate in such dramatic fashion.

“We needed our keeper tonight – Nathan (Trott) made some good saves, which he has done at different stages this season when we’ve needed him.

“But I was pretty confident, irrespective of how patchy our performance was, that we’d get chances, and if we got chances with Callum and Yousef in the box, there was a good chance they would take them. Luckily, we were still in the game where that would count.

“There’s been so many games this season where I felt as if we’ve dominated games completely and haven’t scored the goals that would reflect that.

“The mentality of the team has been there all season, and it was good to see us maintain that.“

Huddersfield interim head coach Martin Drury was frustrated to see his side drop points in stoppage time for the second game in a row, following their 3-3 draw with Wycombe on Saturday.

He said: “I think Cardiff have outdone us on one stat, and that’s possession, which for someone who wants the ball and wants us to have the ball, is frustrating in itself.

“But I accept that Cardiff are a team that’s been built with Championship players who can play that way, so we accept that it’s not a game we feel we’re going to dominate the ball in.

“So then you have to be good at all the other things. I felt we set up to defend the sides of our box really, really well. I thought our centre-halves and midfielders defended crosses into the box outstandingly well all night, and I felt within all that we posed a real threat on the counter.

“We’ve had 16 shots, 14 in the opposition box, which Cardiff have not had all season from inside their box – it’s very, very rare.

“So I’m frustrated we haven’t got a ruthlessness about us and a cutting edge when we get there, and I’m frustrated by some game-management decisions later on in the game.”