Town boss Kieran McKenna admitted his team could have done better to defend Cardiff City’s late spell of pressure which led to the Bluebirds netting twice in injury time to claim a 2-1 victory, with the Blues having been on course for a 1-0 win after Kieffer Moore had scored against his old club.

Moore had given Town the lead in the 79th minute with his sixth goal for the club but Ryan Wintle and Callum O’Dowda grabbed goals in the fifth and 10th minutes of injury time to turn the game around, the Bluebirds having been little threat during the second half until the match moved into added-on time.

Earlier in the week the Blues had won 3-2 at home to Bristol City via Leif Davis’s 89th-minute goal but this time the boot was on the other foot.

“And probably even later and even tougher,” McKenna reflected ruefully. “That’s football.

“We did really well, I think, in the second half to take control, get the goal and put ourselves in a commanding position on 90 minutes.

“If the game finishes there, I think we’d be talking about a really a strong away performance. But it doesn’t end there and in the last 10 minutes we weren’t able to do what we needed to do in terms of defending our box, in terms of seeing off the crosses and the deliveries they were always going to put in our box.

“So it means we’re on the wrong end of a really disappointing finish to the game. But we’ve had it the other way plenty of times this season. Over the course of a season, you’re very likely going to have to taste both sides of it.

“We’ve had to taste both sides of it this week and today it went against, and that’s disappointing. But we’ll learn from it, we’ll learn from that feeling as well as the good feelings we’ve had so many times and we’ll be strong for it.”

Asked to assess the injury time, which went on for four minutes beyond the eight initially indicated by the fourth official, largely for an injury to Kieffer Moore after a clash of heads with Dimitrios Goutas, McKenna said: “My focus at the moment is on what we can own and what we can control. The eight minutes and the fact it went over eight minutes, I haven’t given any thought to yet.

“If you ask me now, I’d say it is inconsistent this year. There are times when it seems to be really high and other times when it seems to be low and if you asked me on the sideline, I wouldn’t be able to guess within a couple of minutes’ margin probably what is going to go up.

“But honestly, I’ve not thought about that until now. My thought has been on us and what we could have done differently, what we could have done better.

“We finished with a really attacking team on the pitch, there’s no doubt about that, we made a lot of positive changes at 0-0 away from home, I think that’s reflective of our mentality and it’s served us so well this year and it was part of us getting the 1-0.

“But that means that having used the four subs, we had a lot of attacking players on the pitch to see the game out with. Kieffer was then at the point of exhaustion, so that meant another strong set-play defender had to come off the pitch.

“I think we can say personnel-wise, we can say we weren’t at our strongest to see a game out away from home against Cardiff and the best set-piece team in the league.

“But other than that, we can still do better. We can do better in terms of getting out to the ball, in terms of blocking crosses and stopping the ball coming into our box.

“And we’ll look at that and we’ll feel the feelings from today and try and do better in that scenario.

“But if we’re honest as well, there’s a luck element in football that you can’t always account for.

“The ball’s going to come in your box in the last 10 minutes and the two goals today, certainly on the second goal the ball bounces two or three times, every time it bounces in a Cardiff direction we’ve got the bodies there.

“The first goal, we need to do a little bit better with, but it ricochets and bounces to a Cardiff player. Sometimes the luck in those situations doesn’t go your way, but certainly our main reflection will be on the things we can control, the things we could have done better.”

Quizzed on whether he had been involved in many 100-minutes-plus matches this season, he recalled: “That’s where it is erratic this season, I have to say. We had plus-13 at the start of the year [at Sunderland], there have been some games this year where there have been lots of stoppages and you’ll maybe get plus-five, and there have been other games where there have been less.

“Today, I’ve not reflected on it or checked the ball-in-play time, so I can’t say it was wrong. It is a little bit inconsistent, but it is what it is and it’s not our main focus now.”

McKenna felt there was an infringement on left-back Davis in the incident which led to the corner from which Cardiff scored their winning goal.

“It looked like it was a foul on Leif from where I am,” he said. “But I’m not going to waste too much energy moaning about the things we can’t control in that.

“We’ll look at how we could have defended the corner better, but it was very late in the game and it looked like a foul.”

Prior to Cardiff’s late goals, it had looked like it was going to be Town striker Moore’s day, the Wales international having put the Blues in front with his sixth goal in eight starts and one sub appearance 11 minutes from the scheduled end.

“It did,” McKenna continued. “It was a really good what would have been a winning goal. A really good finish and he battled really hard for the team and he went pretty much to the last ounce of effort that he had, so it’s a shame that we weren’t able to see the game out for the whole group, for the supporters and for Kieffer as well.

“He has quite a nasty cut just above his eye. He’s a tough lad, so I’m sure he’ll be there next week.”

McKenna believed Town were worthy of their goal when it came: “I thought we deserved the goal on the way the second half was going.

“First half, you know coming here when they’re fresh in the early stages of the game that you’re going to have to defend some set plays. They’re a big threat from those, most of their chances and incidences are from those situations.

“I still thought we were relatively in control in the first half but still we didn’t defend a couple of moments well enough.

“But in the second half, I thought, not necessarily doing anything different, more sticking to what we do, really taking control of the game, our fitness comes into the game.

“We took the game to them, pretty much the whole game was in the Cardiff half of the pitch from 45 to 90 minutes.

“Of course, they’re still not easy to create chances against because they defend their box really well, but I really liked the way we built the pressure without opening up too much, just squeezed and squeezed a little bit more until we got the first goal and put ourselves in a great position in the game.

“We’ve been very good at seeing games out this year. Today we weren’t able to be, so that’s the only real disappointment in the game.”

Might the defeat, only Town’s fifth in the league this season, prove a costly slip-up in the promotion race with the Blues now third, one point behind Leeds following the Whites’ 2-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday last night?

“Who knows?” McKenna reflected. “We’re not focusing or thinking about a promotion race, to be honest, we’re just thinking about ourselves, our journey, the next game, trying to come here and do as well as we can today.

“Bits of the performance we could have improved but I think it was a strong second half and whether we won today, drew today or unfortunately lost today, it wouldn’t change anything that we focus on or work on next week at the training ground.

“It will just be improving ourselves and getting ready for Sheffield Wednesday next week and delivering a performance and trying to win the next game, and that’s what we’ll do for the next nine [matches].”

Photo: TWTD

hyperbrit added 20:36 - Mar 10 and don't forget the extra 3 mins from the referee giving them time to win.Talk to the Posh manager when the same thing happened to them last season so Wed,could go up The EFL is salivating over a Norwich.-Town Wembley playoff final as a money earner imo
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blueboy1981 added 21:12 - Mar 10 hyperbrit ….. and who can do something about that ? - We Can ! - but NOT by doing what we did at Cardiff ….. !! Not many will relish the thought of playing Norwich in the Play Off’s - or be Confident - so let’s do what’s needed NOW to avoid that, in the next, and remaining games ahead.
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blueboy1981 added 09:43 - Mar 11 Mr McK’ - we havn’t defended ‘well enough’ all Season - Goals against column tells that story clearly enough !
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hyperbrit added 11:03 - Mar 11 agreed blueboy..it's time for Mck to wake up and smell the coffee.Towns offense is great and the defense is pathetic.Two decent CB's needed asap if we go up because the fullbacks are useless at defending. Tuanzebe would have saved the draw but sat on the bench. Taking Clarke off for extra time would have saved the win imo
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hyperbrit added 12:16 - Mar 12 who was it that said McK has no plan B..a one trick pony?He will learn from his mistakes though unlike most Town managers over the years. We sure could have used a bit of "hoof ball" the other day a specially of a certain stubborn manager in the past.
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hyperbrit added 03:01 - Mar 15 I'd be willing to bet that a Norwich -Town Wembley final is baked into the cake by the EFL and the Cinderella team ITFC goes up just like the fairy tale. Town fans need to get over the jeebies though because that spooks the players just like England penalty shoot outs
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hyperbrit added 03:19 - Mar 15 failing that they'll probably have to sell Davis and buy two decent CB's
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