Chris Burke came up with a couple of moments that turned the game twice for Birmingham city at St Andrews on Saturday.
First of all he won the penalty that gave Paul Caddis the chance of adding another goal to his portfolio in the 57th minute after Middlesbrough had taken the lead through a 22nd minute strike by Mustapha Carayol.
Then after Boro had retaken the lead with ten minutes left of normal time through Middlesbrough Daniel Ayala, Burke was on hand in the 94th minute to send into the box a pinpoint corner which Kyle Bartley took great delight at heading into the corner of the net.
Even though they came back from being twice down, it was still disappointing to see Blues get nothing more than a home draw when a win was there for the taking had play in the final third of the field been better.
Middlesbrough came to St Andrews with a dismal record of just six points from their last 21 away games so you could see why Blues were the favourites to win this one before a ball was kicked, but as play went on they found themselves in a battle.
In the early exchanges of the game Dariusz Dudka and Jesse Lingard both had early strikes at goal, one effort going wide and Jonathan Woodgate getting in the way of the latter.
But was Middlesbrough who went in front on 22 minutes, Marvin Emnes crossed from the left and that found its way back to Carayol who turned and fired the ball into the net.
Boro settled down then and looked the better of the two sides being a goal in front, Albert Adomah narrowly missed a right-wing which certainly would have killed the game off as a competition.
In the second half Clarke tried to step things up by bringing on Chris Burke and straight away we saw a cross from Mitch Hancox come off the head of Woodgate and hit his own post.
And after another couple of ventures into the Boro box, Blues were correctly awarded a penalty after Ben Gibson brought down Burk in the area and Caddis made no mistake from the spot once again.
Middlesbrough came back into the game and they almost went 2-1 up when Kei Kamara sent a downward header towards goal and Randolph made a superb reflex save.
But on 80 minutes Randolph was unlucky when Blues just could not get the ball away from a corner and then Ayala took full advantage and stabbed the ball past City`s keeper and Boro were 2-1 to the good.
That looked the way the game was going to stay but deep into stoppage time Birmingham denied Boro a rare away win when Bartley near knocked the back of the net out from a Burke corner.
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