Soccer English FA Premiership/Norwich 4 Middlesbrough 4: When the whistle went the feeling here was unambiguous. Three goals in the final 12 minutes to claw a point from the grasp of ignominy - what more could Norwich fans ask for? As they went home and looked at the league table, however, their smiles may have crept away.

While all their relegation rivals mustered home wins against sides in the top half of the table, Norwich had to stage the most improbable of late comebacks to avoid humiliating defeat.

On the positive side, it looks like the Canaries might have learned how to score. On the negative, they have not kept a clean sheet since October.

After an evenly contested first half, Middlesbrough eased into control thanks to three second-half set-pieces generously gifted by their hosts and executed with aplomb. The introduction at the interval of James Morrison, another member of their FA Youth Cup-winning side, gave Boro the extra zest they needed to take hold of midfield; opportunities to probe Norwich's patently porous back line soon followed.

Within 10 minutes they were 3-1 up after Frank Queudrue turned in two corners, the first with real determination at the near post, the second with real leisure after his marker, Mattias Jonsson, switched off. With 12 minutes to go Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's free-kick had made it four and the game, deservedly, was theirs.

Gareth Southgate takes up the story from there: "At that point they had nothing to lose and we switched off. We were untroubled until the second goal but after that it gave them something to cling on to. The last 10 minutes we didn't play with our heads. We kept giving the ball away and just invited pressure on to ourselves."

Whatever collective seizure came over Boro afflicted Southgate himself. He stood still as Dean Ashton nipped in to score Norwich's second, the former Crewe striker's first for the club. When Leon McKenzie dived in to score the third, the cross had looped over Southgate's head first.

So unlikely was Boro's collapse that the rules of dramatic resolution demanded an equaliser. So it came to pass.

Darren Huckerby got the ball with just a minute on the clock and drove straight at the Boro defence. Michael Reiziger, deputising at centre-half, was tempted into a novice's foul. Ashton demanded the free-kick and smashed the ball goalwards only for it to be deflected for a corner. Huckerby floated the ball in and, as the ground held its breath, the left-back, Adam Drury, 1m 75cm, headed the equaliser. Delirium followed. - Guardian Service