Cardiff City recovered from a shocking start to get to within 2 minites of taking Tuesday night's Capital One Cup tie against West Ham to extra time.
City were 2 - 0 down after 8 minutes but rallied to level with goals from Graig Noone and Peter Odemwingie.
Malky Mackay was proud of the effort put in by his players to get back into the match.
"We had a mountain to climb with the way we started," admitted the City manager.
"I thought we were a shadow of ourselves in that first period but we scored a beautiful goal on the stroke of half-time to bring ourselves back into it
"We had a conversation at half-time and certainly put West Ham on the back foot in the second half.
"To quieten the crowd to that extent at 2-2, I'm very proud of the players."
And from the West Ham perspective.
"It should have been all over at half-time," admitted assistant boss Neil MacDonald.
"That's the most disappointing thing. We played some brilliant stuff in the first half, we got the early goals and created chance after chance after chance, but we didn't finish them off.
"We probably thought it was too easy and took our foot of the pedal. And Cardiff scored a great goal just before half-time.
"When you are on the back foot after conceding just before half-time it changes everything. People come in expecting a pat on the back but instead we gave them a talking-to.
"To be fair to Cardiff they got the equaliser but we stuck together, we worked hard for each other and we'll take a late winner and a 3-2 win.
"It's always good to win and Sam is pleased we are through, although he's slightly disappointed with some aspects."
Highlights from Cardiff City YouTube Channel