THREE of the pivotal players in City's comeback from 2-0 down at Cardiff spoke to First News after the final whistle at Ninian Park.

Arturo Lupoli was naturally delighted to get off the mark with two goals in five minutes, but praised the entire team for their efforts: "It's good to get goals, we played the last 20 minutes very well and when you score one everything gets easier and thanks to my team-mates who did everything very well. It was 10 months I didn't score in action, so it was a very long, bad time for me at Fiorentina. But I worked every day even when I wasn't scoring and that's very important to me. Hopefully I'm at a point now where I can move on this season.

"I didn't really think we could get back into the game, but you have to try and when you get one, you see that the game is open. It was important when I got the first one that I tried to use the remaining minutes to equalise so it was perfect."

 Lee Croft's shot was turned in by Lupoli for the first and a good cross set up the Italian's equaliser and the winger hopes the fightback will set the team up nicely for a big game at home to Birmingham at Carrow Road next Saturday.

He commented: "I think you always have to remain optimistic in games and you can never think that it's over until the final whistle. We've got great players like Lupo and great strikers who can score goals - we haven't been doing that recently but luckily in the last 15 minutes it came together.

"It was a great header, he's done brilliantly - he scores brilliant goals like that all week in training and I'm glad he's off the mark and I'm sure there'll be plenty more.

"The way the first few games have gone, today we went down 1-0 and people thought we were dead and buried but luckily we've got great character and we've got a great result in the end. It's kick-started the season for us, we're at home next week and we'll have a good crowd and hopefully we can take them on."

Matty Patison was many observers' man of the match and he capped a bright 90 minutes with a vital header off the line from Johnson to safeguard a point for his side. He said after the game: "It's a massive result, it just showed the character of the lads and hopefully that can start the season off for us. It started out seeming to be one of those days but we came back and a brilliant header from Lupoli helped us get the point and I thought that we could win the game with a few more chances.

"I would have been utterly gutted if the shot went in that I headed away. The corner came across and it just dropped down came straight at me - anywhere else and it would have gone in, but it just hit me straight on the head.

"Everyone's happy, we'll be positive for the game at Carrow Road against Birmingham next Saturday. Coming back from 2-0, it's hard to do so I'm sure it's started us off well. I enjoy playing on the right, and on the left - I do like attacking even when I play in the middle. I'm just glad to be playing in the first 11 and hopefully I can just keep performing well."