Bristol City 3, Huddersfield Town 3

Sep 27 2004 By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Had the wingman had such luck in the Athens Olympics, then Australia would have been going home with gold.

Mirfin - who was magnificent all game - could only lay on the rain-soaked turf in agony as he realised Town's terrific efforts would count for nothing more than a point.

They were desperately unlucky, although Jackson acknowledged that if you're going to score three goals away from home, you really ought to win.

While the eventual outcome felt like a defeat, there was plenty of encouragement in a bristling performance to suggest Town can be among the League I play-off challengers.

They will need to tighten up at the back, obviously, but the quality of their attacking play on a tricky surface matched anything they produced against Hull City and Port Vale.

Town's showing at Ashton Gate, in fact, made events against Barnsley even more baffling - because there was belief to bounce back from Scott Murray's eighth-minute City opener and all the enterprise which Jackson had called for from his key midfield duo of Chris Brandon and Danny Schofield.

It took a little while for Nathan Clarke to bed in as replacement for the suspended Efe Sodje, but once he'd settled after a few early scares and the Murray goal, he got better by the minute alongside the excellent Mirfin and Steve Yates.

A sweeping length-of-the-pitch move involving six players would have led to a Schofield opener on 20 minutes had it not been for the fingertips of keeper Steve Phillips and the help of a post, but Schofield was not to be denied with an angled drive on 28, after Pawel Abbott had crossed and Brandon had been blocked.