Bournemouth boss Kevin Bond feared the worst as Cardiff ripped apart his side in the opening period at Dean Court.
"I feared the worst after 15 minutes," said Bond. "We went 4-4-2, which was a change from the weekend, and we made two terrible errors to give Cardiff two goals. For a time they looked like Real Madrid with their passing game.
"At that stage it was looking like damage limitation, but we kept at it and got a break with our goal. After half-time we were the better side and might have taken it into extra time.
"We competed with a Cardiff City team who I think are very, very strong. It's disappointing to go out of the Carling Cup, but we can take heart from the performance. We got after Cardiff a little more in the second half and closed them down.
"Marvin Bartley on the right did a good job. He has such high energy levels and is so infectious for us. By his own admission he is not the most creative wide midfield player, but I wanted to play 4-4-2 and somebody had to be a square peg in a round hole and play wide."
Dave Jones
"When Bournemouth scored it gave them hope. We should have taken that away from them after going 2-0 ahead. We had enough chances to have won it three or four times over.
"It's not a running tap of water where you can turn it on, turn it off and then back on again. That's what we tried to do. At half-time I had a bit of a moan and told them to get back into the attitude of pass and move. When we did that, they couldn't live with us.
"We must have had 20 or 25 attacks in the second half and just didn't deliver that final ball. Sometimes it's all about getting through, but after we played so well from the start we should have been well and truly out of sight.
"Gavin Rae got a kick on the calf and it swelled up. We just took him off. It's pointless risking him. We went down to 10 players, which is something we practice anyway.
Hopefully thait is nothing more than bruising and everybody else was OK."