Before I go any further, I'd just like to point out I didn't see a hint of trouble anywhere. The away end was nowhere near as full as I thought it would be, which was a shame. Those that decided against travelling would have witnessed one of our better away performances this season.
Keeping with the side that won against Blackpool, we made a nervy start to the game with Cardiff coming at us from the start, but having weathered an early spell of pressure, Pacquette broke through and finished well from six yards after latching onto Shittu's hopeful punt forward. Apologies to all who witnessed my verbal outburst of Pacquette at the Blackpool match - I take it all back!
The goal settled our nerves and for the remainder of the half we held onto the lead with some comfort. Cardiff hardly impressed me at all, too one-directional and only threatening from set pieces. The better football came from us, but a second goal was never really looking likely.
I knew Cardiff would come at us in the second half, and it proved to be the case, but we defended superbly with Shittu winning everything in the air. Eventually though the pressure took its toll, and Young finally got on the end of another one of those irritating long thrown-ins.
This only gave us the start kick we needed, and from here on we dominated the game and created enough chances to have won comfortably.
Perhaps I was right about Pacquette after all. He should have had a hat-trick on the night. You could argue that at least he's getting into goalscoring positions — but he's got to learn to take more of the opportunities that come his way. Andy Thomson of three to four months ago would have claimed a hat-trick, and that was the only difference on the night.
Pacquette's night wasn't to get any better. 15 minutes from time he picked up his second yellow card of the game for a nothing challenge on a Cardiff player, and his game was over. Unfortunately, Ian Holloway protested as much as anyone around me, and he too got his marching orders, being ordered to the stands. I do hope he doesn't receive a touchline ban for this — he was only wearing his heart on his sleeve.
Having being dealt another blow, we somehow were able to step up another gear, going all out for the win. Some of the football we played was superb, no-one could say they had a poor or even average game – we played Cardiff off the pitch at times. Their only response was another aerial bombardment that we coped so well with all night. If that was my team, I would have been mad that we didn't try to change it.
With full-time only a couple of minutes away, Matthew Rose was presented with a great chance to have made the game ours. Put through by Gallen on the counter-attack, Rose committed the ‘keeper but then put his shot over the bar. Having praised the Cardiff fans earlier, had that one gone in it could have been all so different!
It proved to be the nearest either side came to scoring before the ref blew up for full-time. I was proud of the way we played tonight, but unhappy nonetheless that we didn't take all three points. Chesterfield on Saturday will hopefully suffer because of it.
QPR: 4-4-2 – Evans 7 – Forbes 7, Shittu 8, Ben Askar 7, Bignot 7 – Langley 8, Palmer 7, Rose 7, Griffiths 7 – Gallen 9 (90mins Thomson), Pacquette 7. SNU: Bull, Murphy, Doudou, Daly.