TONY Mowbray insisted his side got their rewards for a positive approach at Cardiff City.
Middlesbrough came storming from behind to win 3-2 at promotion rivals Cardiff with a swashbuckling second half show in which they took the game to the in-form Welsh outfit.
Trailing 2-1 at the break, Boro carved up Cardiff to engineer excellent goals for Scott McDonald and Faris Haroun in a stirring fightback.
The victory – Boro’s third on the bounce – edged Mowbray’s men back to within two points of West Ham and three behind Southamption at the top of the Championship table.
Mowbray hailed his heroes for setting out to attack in-form Cardiff, who were unbeaten in 11 games, having won seven at home on the bounce, with six clean sheets in a row.
“We felt we had to go there and take the game to them, ” he said. “It was an interesting tactical game. They play a bit like an away side at home. They line up with a 4-1-4-1 leaving Kenny Miller alone up top and they break and counter-attcak.
“A lot of teams have gone to Cardiff, tried to sit deep and play one up front and that plays into their hands a bit. We felt we had to threaten them. We thought we would be positive, get bodies forward and ask questions of them defensively and I think we did that.
“We played with two strikers and Barry Robson just behind them and with the likes of Faris and Justin Hoyte getting forward too.
“They had kept six clean sheets on the bounce so for us to go there and score three makes its own statement.” But it was far from easy. Boro went ahead early on as Nigerian Bart Ogbeche scored on his first start.
Barry Robson pushed a ball into the path of Ogbeche who took a touch and then sent in a sizzling 22-yard effort that clipped defender Mark Hudson and flew inside the far post.
But then Cardiff piled on the pressure. A string of dead-ball deliveries from Peter Whittingham caused chaos in the Boro box and by the break the home side looked well on top.
They levelled via a Ben Turner header from a whipped Whittingham corner. Then in a torrid spell Aron Gunnarson bagged another just before the break as Boro’s defence cracked.
