Cardiff City 1-1 Wrexham: Last-gasp Rubin Colwill free-kick earns Bluebirds a Welsh derby draw

Rubin Colwill scored a ferocious equaliser with almost the final kick of the match to earn Cardiff City a 1-1 draw with Wrexham on the Bluebirds’ return to the Championship.

Wrexham appeared to have the Welsh derby bragging rights sewn up as the contest ticked into the eighth minute of added time at Cardiff City Stadium.

But George Dobson brought down Joel Colwill on the edge of the box, and his brother Rubin stepped up to lash a brilliant free-kick over the wall and past Anthony Patterson in the Wrexham goal.

Colwill’s strike cancelled out Kieffer Moore’s third-minute effort, the former Cardiff forward continuing his habit of scoring against his former employers – his seventh versus the Bluebirds.

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Match action

Wrexham had 18 goal attempts to 11 and, in truth, should have prevented any late anxiety by putting the game beyond hosts back at this level after a season in League One.

Cardiff’s defensive resources had been stretched by injuries to Calum Chambers, Dylan Lawlor and Will Fish, so much so that usual left-back Joel Bagan was switched inside to partner Gabriel Osho in the heart of defence.

The new-look partnership was exposed immediately after Cardiff only managed to clear a Lewis O’Brien free-kick as far as Danny Imray and his ball forward caught the hosts napping.

Osho played Moore onside and the striker broke beyond Bagan to rifle the ball above Nathan Trott’s head for his first goal since February, ending a run of 11 Wrexham games without scoring.

Trott tipped over Callum Doyle header’s as Cardiff appeared to get to grips with the pace of Championship football.

But the Bluebirds slowly improved and had a good spell midway through the first half after Zak Vyner left a back pass short and Patterson reacted smartly to beat Yousef Salech to the loose ball.

Jack Moylan scooped over and Paterson made a comfortable save from Cian Ashford after some slick Cardiff passing.

Wrexham went close to a second when Moore rose well from an O’Brien cross and skimmed the crossbar with a header.

Imray’s scuffed shot then forced a save from Trott, although the ball appeared to be heading wide anyway.

Second half

Just as they had at the start of the game Cardiff switched off again following the restart.

Ollie Rathbone’s ball inside found Doyle and Trott was alive at the near post to save with his foot.

Trott made a more comfortable stop from Nathan Broadhead before Doyle lashed a rasping drive past him and on to a post.

Cardiff sent on the Colwill brothers just after the hour mark to try and shift momentum in their favour and Moylan saw his deflected effort drift just wide.

Dominic Hyam headed against his own crossbar, but Cardiff kept pushing to deny Wrexham their first win in the Welsh capital since 1992.

Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson was frustrated by the amount of added time played, saying: “I don’t know where the referee got six minutes from, to be honest. 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.”

High-end performances

Parkinson added: “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.

“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.”

Huge figure

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,” said Barry-Murphy.

“But the way the game was going, I felt as if we needed a bit of something different.

“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.”

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