Town boss Mick McCarthy felt two penalty decisions were pivotal in the Blues’ 3-1 Championship play-off semi-final second leg defeat at Norwich City, the Canaries winning the tie 4-2 on aggregate to set up a Wembley final against Middlesbrough.
Blues midfielder Teddy Bishop was caught in the first half by Nathan Redmond but referee Roger East waved away his protests. After the break, East correctly dismissed Christophe Berra for handling Redmond’s shot on the line, leading to Wes Hoolahan opening the scoring from the penalty spot.
"The game’s hinged on a penalty decision, two penalty decisions in my view,” McCarthy said.”I thought we should have had one in the first half when Bish was brought down.
"And the second one was a stonewaller, it’s a sending off and with 10 men we were hardly likely to win, unfortunately.”
McCarthy felt Berra handing the ball was a natural reaction: "The TV asked me whether he should he have pulled his hand away, and of course he should in the cold light of day, but we’re kind of hardwired and trained to stop the ball going in the net.
"He’s been brilliant, Christophe. It’s a penalty, a sending off, nothing we can do about it.”
Despite being reduced to 10 men the Blues got back on terms when Tommy Smith netted from close range, typifying the resilience and never-say-die spirit the side have shown all season.
"They’re great, I’m immensely proud of them,” McCarthy added. "They’ve been fantastic all season I couldn’t be any prouder of a group of fellas.
"Low maintenance, hard-working, really professional and I think today they’ve shown what they’ve been about and why we’re in the play-offs when we were pretty unfancied at the start of the season.
"We were the better side in the first half. I go back to the point. I don’t know what anybody else thinks but I think Teddy Bishop got clipped, he says he got clipped, and it should be a penalty.
"Unfortunately, I’ve got history, I seem to remember a game [when manager of Sunderland] against Watford, not that I’ve got a long memory, when we didn’t get one given.”
He says he would feel just as sick if the Blues had reached Wembley and lost there: "There are two teams, I’ve seen Middlesbrough cock-a-hoop on the pitch last night and Norwich today and one of them’s going to be as sick as a seaside donkey, just like I feel now.
"It makes no odds, we’ve got to win it. We haven’t got the chance to play at Wembley but if we’d have lost at Wembley I’d have still been sick. Good luck to the two of them, one of them’s going to be coming back and seeing my kipper in the Championship.”
As home fans ran onto the pitch after the final whistle with police horses helping to disperse them, McCarthy hung around to see his players off the field.
"There are some muppets who come on and want to abuse you, but it’s generally from a distance. I hope they enjoyed themselves,” he said.
"I wanted to make sure all my players came off safe and sound because at Preston [Chesterfield’s] Ian Evatt got kicked, punched and spat on and I certainly didn’t want that happening to any of mine.
"And I don’t think it did, there were some numpties running around giving the usual wanker sign and all that but nothing more. They’re generally not the bravest when they come and shout from a distance.”
Norwich manager Alex Neil said the match went as he expected: "It was a really tense affair, a tight game, as I expected it would be. We’ve come out the other side of it managing to do the job we set out to do.
"It was really pleasing and I’m delighted for the players, the fans and the club that we’ve managed to get ourselves into the final and give ourselves a chance of getting to the Premier League.”
Having brought Wes Hoolahan into the side along with Nathan Redmond, he was pleased that they both played a part in the game’s pivotal incident.
"I put Wes Hoolahan and Nathan Redmond in the team to give us that bit of quality later on as we got further up the pitch and the pleasing thing is that they combined to get us the penalty and the red card which was the turning point in the game.”