Cardiff beat Bristol City in Severnside derby

Perry Ng continued his scoring run as Cardiff beat Bristol City 2-0 in the Severnside derby and moved in to the top five of the Sky Bet Championship.

Ng has scored only 12 goals in a league career spanning eight years, but three of them have come in the last six games.

The full-back’s first-half header put Cardiff in front and substitute Rubin Colwill sealed matters in stoppage time with a thumping shot into the roof of the net.

Darren England took charge of his first match since he was at fault for wrongly disallowing Luis Diaz’s goal for offside when working as Video Assistant Referee during Liverpool’s defeat at Tottenham last month.

Thankfully, for England’s sake, the contest passed without controversy. At least, until the closing stages.

Cardiff were convinced they should have been awarded a free-kick when goalkeeper Max O’Leary picked the ball up after Mark Sykes touched Ollie Tanner’s cross to him.

But England ruled that it was not a deliberate back pass – a decision that sent the Cardiff bench into meltdown – and then ignored calls for a Bristol City penalty after substitute Ephraim Yeboah went to ground.

The Robins were heavily depleted with several regulars missing and had only eight substitutes on the bench, including two goalkeepers and four players who have never played a minute of league football. Joseph James made his first senior start at the age of 17.

But the visitors started brightly with Harry Cornick’s deflected effort just curling wide of a post and Rob Dickie off target after Andreas Weimann burst through.

Cardiff’s extra power soon began to tell, however, and Ng tested O’Leary before Karlan Grant forced another stop from the Robins goalkeeper.

Yakou Meite flashed a wicked cross into the six-yard box but, much to the forward’s disgust, no team-mate had gambled on the ball arriving there.

Sykes was relieved not to put the ball into his own net from another Meite cross, but Cardiff struck from the resulting corner after 33 minutes.

Joe Ralls swung it over into a congested area and Ng rose highest to celebrate again after his spectacular midweek free-kick at Huddersfield.

Meite sent a header straight at O’Leary and Callum Robinson had a stinging shot blocked as Cardiff tried to put the contest to bed.

Bristol City rallied as Ahmed Mehmeti’s 25-yard effort was pushed out by Jak Alnwick and the stretching Weimann hooked over a difficult chance.

The visitors continued to press and Weimann met Taylor Gardner-Hickman’s floated free-kick only to send his header over the crossbar.

But Colwill added gloss in the first minute of stoppage time, cutting between two defenders and rifling home a ferocious shot as Cardiff extended their unbeaten home run to six games – their best for nearly four years.