Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his side found a way to battle for what he believes could prove to be an important point his side drew 1-1 at Birmingham City and revealed that the club has reported the incident in which Jack Taylor was assaulted by a fan following George Hirst’s late, late penalty to the authorities.

Hirst’s 95th-minute spot-kick grabbed the draw for the Blues, who looked set to start their season with a defeat to the League One champions.

“It was a really intense game in the first half,” McKenna said. “Probably some of what we expected, it was mostly as we expected. It wasn’t great quality, to be honest.

“Both teams had great intensity, good organisation, but not enough passages of play in the game.

“We had a couple of good chances, maybe the better chances in the first half, but probably less of the play.

“There was nothing in the game really until the first goal and after that we improved. That was maybe what we needed to sort of go for the game a little bit more.

“There are positives in how we battled. It was always going to be a difficult place to come to tonight and the group fought well in the first half.

“For sure, we need to impose ourselves on the game earlier than we did and to be the team we want to be this year we have to impose ourselves on the ball better than we did.

“But the players stuck at it, good impact off the bench with all the substitutes and the late goal. We know getting them in a Championship season is absolutely vital, especially with good impacts from the bench.

“Positives in terms of coming away with the point, we’ll be stronger for the game. There’s no doubt in my mind that it came early for us as a group and I think a lot of teams would have come here and lost tonight.

“It wasn’t a fantastic game, we didn’t play as well as we would have liked, but we found a way to battle for a point, which, hopefully, will be an important one at the end.”

Asked whether he thought it was a penalty, McKenna said: “I’ve not seen it back. Even from the sideline 50 yards away, it looked like a defender had an arm sort of raised in a bit of an unnatural position, but that’s me without seeing the replay. People have had better views than me.

“I’m not sure [what happened] after the goal, it’s just both players emotional, it’s an emotional game. These sort of incidents can happen and there’s not much to say on it, really.”

Regarding the incident afterwards when Taylor appeared to be put in a headlock by a fan as the Town players celebrated, McKenna added: “Jack’s alright. Someone just showed me it. It’s obviously not ideal, but I think it’s been reported, so the authorities will deal with it.”

Quizzed on his thoughts on Birmingham and whether he believes they can be contenders at the top of the division, he added: “I think it’s no big surprise. I’ve said it before, I think they were a pretty good team in the Championship last time we faced them, to be honest. We had a really tough game here last time round [the Blues coming back from 2-0 down to draw, courtesy of two Marcus Harness goals], I think they had some really talented players and a pretty good team.

“Obviously that season didn’t work out well for them, but they’ve recruited very well in the time in between, they got stronger in League One, not weaker.

“Have a very good young manager and coach and they’ve built up some good feelings and good atmosphere here, so I think they’ll be a really strong team in the division.”

Reflecting on the positives he will take from the game, he said: “I thought we competed well in the first half. We didn’t impose ourselves but coming here on a night like tonight, you can get overrun and out-battled, and we didn’t, we sort of competed on that side of it without imposing ourselves enough on the game.

“We still had some good chances in the first half without playing particularly well and I think finding a way to score a late goal. It’s not by accident, it’s by subs coming on and having a good impact on the game.

“Maybe the penalty was a little bit out of our control but we’ve done it before in this division and going right to the whistle, having impacts off the bench, they give you a better chance of scoring late goals and we got an important one tonight.

“I think we know there’s a lot of work to do with the group, to be honest. We’ve got some really hard work to do on the training pitch in the next few weeks. We have to sort some situations out, get the squad to where it needs to be, but in the meantime we have to pick up points.

“We’ve picked one up tonight in a really hard place and I think if we do the right things over the next few weeks, then I’m certain we’ll play a lot better than we did tonight and we’ll be a much stronger team.”

Photo: TWTD

Fatboy added 23:35 - Aug 8 Spot on.
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cartman1972 added 23:36 - Aug 8 A sound and pragmatic reflection....he won't say we were sh1te because we were . Jack Clarke is a conundrum.....should be really good but actually is pretty poor . Hutchinson needs to get on some big boy pants and remember whom he's contracted to.....was not impressed with our midfield at all......really missed Morsy and hope Cajuste gets up to speed asap . Need a few more in before the window closes

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Mat added 23:40 - Aug 8 Need Cajuste up and running asap..
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ArnieM added 00:11 - Aug 9 Not many teams will get points at St Andrews. For me I think Brum look a typical physical, League One side that goes over the top in so many tackles, and refs will be afraid to rule against them in front of an aggressive and volatile home crowd. They will mug off many teams this season! However, I feel we were very much under par tonight, yet we got a point. Ill take that, but it was far from a good performance but we have to remember we've lost a lot from the squad and appear to be struggling to get players in. Any we do get in will take at least a month to get up to speed....our Dutch Midfielder being a prime example. He's off the English game pace atm but will be a very good addition once he's acclimatised

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ipswichboi added 00:45 - Aug 9 Massive agreement Arnie.we've come out of there with a point when we probably deserved zero points. Our team are learning again at this level, but there were signs that we'll get to grips with it pretty soon. As you say, this is almost the toughest game of the season.. so if we can only get better, that's a great sign
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