Birmingham City 1-1 Huddersfield Town

David Cotterill has scored both Birmingham City's goals in this season's two meetings with Huddersfield Town

Birmingham City and Huddersfield Town shared the spoils at St Andrew's to edge a little closer to safety in the Championship.

Welsh winger David Cotterill fired Blues ahead with a neatly-taken near-post shot, only for Joe Lolley to level for the Terriers by half-time.

That ended a run of three successive defeats for Chris Powell's side to leave them nine points clear of danger.

Blues are four points better off, having dropped a place to 15th.

It means that Gary Rowett's men have lost just once in their last seven home games.

Cottterill scored a cracker when Blues won this season's first meeting between the two sides, 1-0 at the John Smith's Stadium in December.

And, after successive 1-0 home wins, Blues seemed on course for another when Cotterill struck on 10 minutes, with a clinically-taken two-touch finish after David Davis and Paul Caddis had carved out the opening down the right flank.

But Huddersfield, who had won on both their last two visits to St Andrew's, generally had the better of the first half and were deservedly level when Lolley, on Birmingham City's books as a boy, pounced on 27 minutes following a series of ricochets inside the penalty area.

The visitors would have been ahead at the break, but for Blues keeper Darren Randolph making a great save to keep out Joel Lynch's header.

The home side found their feet after the break, however, but not even the introduction of Nikola Zigic for the final 20 minutes could force an opening.

Huddersfield manager Chris Powell:

"Joe is a real natural talent but I would like to see the day he can last 90 minutes. His rise to a Championship footballer is quite amazing.

"He is an ex-university boy who was playing for Kidderminster. After 16 games he gets a big move to a Championship side.

"We are just trying to cajole him. We are trying to get that talent shown regularly on the pitch. Perhaps his nervous energy hinders his progress.

"But he took his goal well and hopefully we have a real talent as there is certainly something there in his play."

Birmingham boss Gary Rowett:

"You could see that Huddersfield were very keen to block the game and work incredibly hard to stop us playing after losing three games on the spin.

"That was evident and it is testament as teams make it difficult for us to play our normal game.

"We moved the ball too slowly and that was the frustration. We scored a well worked goal and it was great to see David Cotterill on the goal sheet after five games without scoring."