Video: Cotterill Hails City Courage

Goals shortly before and after half-time from Mirco Antenucci with a penalty and Chris Wood respectively left the hosts with a mountain to climb.

But Cotterill’s trio of substitutions all made an impact, with Wes Burns raiding down the right flank at will and Bobby Reid involved in both goals – setting up Kieran Agard to halve the deficit with just a minute left before Aden Flint turned home the Bristolian’s corner deep into stoppage time.

“We showed tremendous courage and tremendous football,” the manager told Bristol City Player HD. “It’s an absolute travesty that we’ve only got a point tonight.

“We absolutely battered them. We made a couple of mistakes, but we’ll be okay.

“We’ll be a bit more streetwise as time goes on, but our boys were absolutely brilliant tonight.

“The first goal is not a penalty because he hasn’t touched him. He’s dangled a leg and he hasn’t even touched his dangling leg. That’s tough on us at the moment.

“Sometimes we always want to penetrate, but you can’t penetrate when they’ve all sat in there.

“We tried to penetrate with a small ball and it got lifted over us and all of a sudden there was a big counter-attack on – that was the second goal.

“At this level we’re going to concede goals because the strikers are good. With all due respect, they’re better than the ones we faced last year so we will get punished a little bit more.

“However, once we cut that out and carry on our football and level of performance, we’ll be a force to be reckoned with in this league.”