Kieffer Moore scored in the third minute, and Cardiff’s answer took until the 98th

Kieffer Moore has spent a good part of his career scoring against Cardiff City, and on the night Wrexham came back to face them in a league match for the first time in 24 years, he needed three minutes to do it again.

That goal looked like it would settle the whole thing. Wrexham led at the Cardiff City Stadium for the next 95 minutes, kept creating chances they could not put away, and were eight minutes into stoppage time when Rubin Colwill bent a free-kick over the wall and into the top corner. It finished 1-1, in what was a first match of the Championship season for both clubs.

Three minutes, and an old habit

Cardiff’s back line had been picked apart by injuries before the game started. Will Fish is out for three months after hernia surgery, Calum Chambers and Dylan Lawlor were both unavailable, and the patched-together version behind them lasted about as long as it takes to read this sentence. A ball over the top caught Cardiff square, Gabriel Osho played Moore onside, and the striker let it bounce twice before beating Nathan Trott.

It was his seventh goal against Cardiff, more than he has managed against any other club, which is the kind of number that only accumulates when a player keeps running into the same opponent. Moore was a Cardiff player himself for 18 months, scoring 25 goals in 66 appearances between 2020 and his move to Bournemouth in 2022. He joined Wrexham last summer from Sheffield United for around 2 million pounds on a three-year deal, and the return fixture at the Racecourse will now carry something extra.

Wrexham had the match and could not finish it

Eighteen shots to eleven is not a narrow advantage. Moore headed against the crossbar, another Wrexham effort came back off the post, and Trott made a string of saves through a second half his side spent mostly defending. Anthony Patterson, the goalkeeper Wrexham broke their transfer record for six days earlier, paying Sunderland 8 million pounds, had very little to do at the other end and looked set to mark the occasion with a clean sheet.

Cardiff had sent on the Colwill brothers just after the hour. In the 98th minute, George Dobson brought down Joel on the edge of the box, and Rubin put the ball down and beat Patterson.

Phil Parkinson was still counting minutes afterwards. The board had gone up for six, the Wrexham manager made it four, and the goal went in on 98. “I don’t know where the referee got six minutes from, to be honest,” he said. “I thought it was job done.”

Brian Barry-Murphy saw it from the other side. “I just had the feeling at the end we may get one more chance,” the Cardiff manager said. “But if I’m being honest, I thought it was probably done.”

The first league meeting since 2002

These two clubs had not played a league fixture against each other since 22 March 2002, when Cardiff won 3-2 at Ninian Park through Scott Young, Peter Thorne and Danny Gabbidon. Both were in the third tier that night. Everything that has happened to either club since happened in different divisions, which is why a Monday evening fixture between two Welsh sides felt like more than a season opener.

Cardiff are the ones who travelled back to meet Wrexham rather than the other way round. They spent last season in League One and came out of it with a club-record 91 points. Wrexham, whose climb out of the National League has been filmed more thoroughly than most clubs’ entire histories, are into their second Championship season after finishing seventh last time, two points short of the play-offs.

A point each reads fairly on the night, though neither dressing room will accept that this week. Wrexham controlled a match they let go in stoppage time. Cardiff were second best for most of one they finished level.

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