David Cuffley Defender Gary Doherty admitted to being baffled by Norwich City's current struggle to chalk up home victories after Hull became the fourth visiting team in five Coca-Cola Championship matches to leave Carrow Road with a point.

David Cuffley

Defender Gary Doherty admitted to being baffled by Norwich City's current struggle to chalk up home victories after Hull became the fourth visiting team in five Coca-Cola Championship matches to leave Carrow Road with a point.

It's a sign of how far the Canaries have travelled from rock bottom of the table that even though last night's 1-1 draw with the Tigers extended their unbeaten run to 13 league games, the 28-year-old centre-half regarded it as two points lost.

Dion Dublin's seventh goal of the season - his first in front of home fans - gave Glenn Roeder's team an interval lead before on-loan striker Fraizer Campbell levelled seven minutes into the second half.

“Mentally, it's nice to keep the run going. We're up to 13 games now, which is pleasing, but to go 1-0 up, when we've been quite tight, then concede a goal was disappointing,” said Doherty, choice of the sponsors as man of the match.

“We've given ourselves a little glimmer of a chance of the play-offs and I think it's our away from that's really getting us there. For some reason, we can't turn it on at home like we'd want to, but I hope we can keep our away form going and get our points on the road.

“We're still not losing but we need to get three points the way the league is shaping up. But we can't be too disappointed. One point is better than none.”

Doherty has missed just one game in that 13-match run, when he was suspended for the visit of Sheffield United. And City have not conceded more than one goal in any league game since their last defeat, 2-1 at Stoke on December 1.

Hull, now ninth in the table, have taken four points off the Canaries this season and it was their second successive 1-1 draw at Norwich.

“They had a few more chances than most teams have been creating against us, so that's something we've got to look at,” said Doherty.

“They played with Okocha in the hole and he creates a lot. They're a decent team, quite solid defensively. There wasn't really much in the game. Crofty had a decent chance, I suppose, to put us 2-0 up but they ended up snatching a goal and more or less holding on and trying to hit us on the counter-attack.

“It was scruffy goal to concede from our point of view but the lad did tremendously to touch it off and spin and, fair play to him, he got his goal. He worked really hard.”

The Canaries visit Leicester on Saturday, four weeks after Ian Holloway's team escaped from Carrow Road with a goalless draw.

Said Doherty: “We've seen them a few weeks ago and on TV a couple of times. We've seen their pitch. It's not great, is it? It's going to be a battle.”