Wolves boss Mick McCarthy admitted his relief at emerging with a point in their 2-2 draw against Cardiff.

But he insisted the Championship leaders more than deserved it for their first-half performance.

Cardiff keeper Dimi Konstantopoulos’ fumbled attempt to catch substitute Kyel Reid’s 81st minute cross ended up gifting Wolves a point.

“There was some relief at getting a point, but in the first half we had chances to be more than 1-0 ahead,” said McCarthy.

“It was a really improved performance. I thought we were excellent for half an hour, really terrific. We could have put the game to bed.

“But if you’re talking about a little bit of luck, we got it from the speculative effort from Kyel which ended up giving us an equaliser.

“It was a fabulous cross but should have been dealt with by their keeper.

“He made a mistake and it gave us a point.

“I most definitely think we deserved that slice of luck.

“Maybe we’ve been waiting for that because I’d thought our luck had seriously deserted us.

“We thought we needed one off somebody’s backside or something and maybe that second goal was that little bit of luck.”

McCarthy revealed his sympathy for left-back Stephen Ward in the build-up to Michael Chopra’s 31st minute leveller for Cardiff after Paul Parry crossed at the second attempt.

“Their first goal was a good one, but I felt a bit for ‘Wardy’ because he’d done well and made a good tackle only for the ball to not go out and ricochet back in,” said the boss.

“It was crossed back to (Michael) Chopra who’s a Premier League striker and he buried it.”

Many fans thought Karl Henry was fouled at the start of the move that gave Cardiff the corner from which defender Roger Johnson scored the Bluebirds’ second goal to put the visitors ahead on 48.

But the Wolves chief instead blamed it on the errors from his players.

“We made two mistakes at the start of the second half – one compounds the other and we were 2-0 down,” he said.

“It was a great header by Roger Johnson but we made a mistake in midfield and then didn’t mark properly.

“We ended up chasing it then and could have lost it by three because we were all over the shop.”

Wolves have failed to win despite leading in six of their last 10 games, but McCarthy praised his players for showing character to hit back after trailing.

“I thought my players were different class for half an hour,” he said. “They had a disappointment, but we played well and I was delighted with the overall performance.

“I feel the players have handled it well, from being 2-1 down and dealing with all those outside factors that seem apparent.”

McCarthy made three changes, recalling Jody Craddock, Dave Edwards and Andy Keogh for Richard Stearman, Nigel Quashie and Sam Vokes and paid tribute to club captain Craddock.

“I just felt we needed his experience because we’ve been shipping goals,” he said.

“We still shipped another two yesterday but it was nothing to do with Jody – I thought he had a really good game.”

By MARTIN SWAIN