Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson complained over the amount of added time after Rubin Colwill’s last-gasp free kick gave Cardiff a dramatic 1-1 Championship draw on Monday.
Parkinson said there should have been no more than four minutes added on as Wrexham resolutely defended a lead given to them by Kieffer Moore’s early effort.
But referee Andrew Kitchen added six minutes and, following George Dobson’s foul on Joel Colwill on the edge of the area, another two minutes had passed before Colwill’s ferocious strike flew over the Wrexham wall and past goalkeeper Anthony Patterson.
“I don’t know where the referee got six minutes from, to be honest,” said Parkinson. “I thought it was more like four. I don’t think there was an injury in the second half, and I thought it was job done.
“But we had enough chances to have killed the game off. We should have been out of sight really.”
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Former Cardiff striker Moore put Wrexham ahead in the third minute, his seventh goal against his former club. He also skimmed the crossbar with a header and Callum Doyle’s second-half drive thudded against a post.
Wrexham had further opportunities to put the game beyond newly-promoted Cardiff, but goalkeeper Nathan Trott denied Doyle, Danny Imray and Sam Smith.
Parkinson said: “Some of our attacking play was of a very high standard and in many respects I’m pleased with the performance, but obviously when you concede late it hurts.
“Obviously they were putting balls in the box, and deep towards the end we defended that.
“We knew they were going to commit players forward, but equally on the transition we had some great chances.
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“I didn’t feel really troubled. I felt very comfortable in a hostile atmosphere. We’ve come here, the first game in the division, and the place was bouncing.
“It was an electric atmosphere, but we handled it with calmness and an assuredness of a team which came into the game believing we could win the game.
“We haven’t, but when I reflect and go through the individuals in the team, I thought there were some really high-end performances.”
Cardiff boss Brian Barry-Murphy celebrated substitute Colwill’s equaliser with a Jose Mourinho-style touchline dash that brought him a yellow card for leaving his technical area.
“Rubin’s only trained for two days really, so probably shouldn’t have put him on as early as I did,” Barry-Murphy said. “But the way the game was going, I felt as if we needed a bit of something different.
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“He’s an impeccable professional, loves the game, loves the club, so he’s a huge figure for us here, I can’t deny that.
“He just needs to find some rhythm and volume in his training because he hasn’t done a lot of training days.”
The disappointing start Wrexham’s second season in the Championship after successive promotions in the last three campaigns comes on the heels of a first-round exit from the Carabao Cup at the hands of Middlesbrough on Aug. 7.
Information from PA was used in this report.
