Town boss Mick McCarthy was disappointed that his side conceded a last-minute equaliser at bottom-of-the-table Bolton but admitted that the Blues would have been fortunate had they claimed all three points.
"The overriding emotion is disappointment having got to 96 minutes and then given them a chance to equalise,” he said.
"But we were fortunate, I think, because they played very well. Our goalkeeper’s been excellent, our defenders have had to be as well.
"I knew that they would play with gay abandon, it’s almost like a resignation, I’ve been in teams like that when they get to that stage when you can go and play.
"If you get beat, you get beat. If you win then it’s great. I thought they played like that. I thought they were excellent tonight.”
He added: "A draw was the least they deserved. As I say, I thought we were fortunate. Had we come away and won it we would have burgled it completely, but I don’t mind that.
"I’d love to be playing better. It’s not just been plain sailing for us but again we’ve come away with a point.
"I said to the lads, ‘Would we have taken seven points from the last three games?’. Yes, we would have done. We should have had nine when we got to that stage but we haven’t. Nowt I can do about it now.”
Asked what he’s said to Ainsley Maitland-Niles regarding the penalty he conceded deep in injury time, he said: "Kick the f*****g thing out. But he knows that.
"Actually, I didn’t say that to him. He said ‘He dived, I got the ball’. I said that until I see it I won’t know. But whether he did or he didn’t, kick the f******g thing out, don’t make the referee have a decision to make.
"But I just said to the lads that we all need a bit of love, we don’t need kicking in the bollocks. When you’ve made a mistake, the last thing you need is, ‘There you are, have a kick in the nuts’, and make it even worse and compound it.
"And that anybody who hasn’t made a mistake in my team can stand up and punch me in the nose. Well, nobody got up because we’ve all done it, we’ve all made mistakes.
"I’ve made them when I’ve been a lot older and a lot wiser than Ainsley is. He’ll learn from it.
"I tell you what, he put a great ball in for the goal, he put another ball in which was flicked on and Tommy headed wide, that would have made it 3-1. He’s a kid, give him a bit of love, that’s what we need to do.”
Regarding first goalscorer Kevin Bru, who was subbed just after half-time having taken a knock, he said: "He’d been poorly on Saturday, he got a really nasty kick. He scored a great goal, which was remarkable, I think it was his first kick in the game.
"We couldn’t get hold of the ball, that was completely against the run of play. It was a wonderful strike.”
Christophe Berra’s goal which looked to have won the game until the closing moments was his first since April last year.
"About time,” McCarthy added. "We shared them out a bit more last year, the defenders. But we’re still on the back of that top six.
"Of course, it’s a missed opportunity, but I just said to the lads, you can actually put too much emphasis on that’s what’s happened tonight - a mistake, they’ve got back in, a penalty.
"You can put so much emphasis on that and forget what we’re all about and what we’ve got to do now.
"And we were probably fortunate point the way the game has gone. That’s not the overriding feeling when you’ve lost the two points in the 96th minute but that’s the truth of it.
"You’ve got to be honest about it and accept it, and let’s go down to Cardiff and try and get something by sticking together. That’s the way we’ve survived and thrived all the time.
"And despite that we’re still on the back of what we’re trying to achieve, which is getting in the top six. So, disappointment tonight, but we’ve still got games to play.”
The Town boss says he doesn’t yet know whether Cole Skuse (toe ligament) or Daryl Murphy (calf) will be fit to travel to Cardiff on Saturday: "No idea.”
Bolton boss Neil Lennon was pleased with his team's performance but disappointed not to have claimed what would have been a vital three points.
"I’m fed up, frustrated," he said. "We’re playing so well but we missed some gilt-edged chances.
"Then they scored a wonder goal and sometimes you can’t legislate for that. Then we come back and we have another go at it and miss chances, and then our goalkeeper slips on a freekick through no fault of his own and we get punished for it.
"The least we deserved was a point but it’s very frustrating when you see the quality of our play and the quality of the chances that we’re creating and the misses. It’s pretty symptomatic of our season really.
"The spirit is fantastic. I’ve been saying for a while we’ve been playing really well, and we have. We played really well tonight, we were the better team by a long, long way.
"But football’s about being ruthless and taking your chances and putting teams away when you’re in the ascendancy and we didn’t do that again tonight.
"I can’t be critical of the character of the team and some of the quality of the football was exceptionally good.
"But we’ve missed that killer, that goalscorer, just someone who has that knack of scoring the goals to finish off all the good approach play.”