Republic of Ireland defender Jimmy Dunne rescued a point to keep QPR in the hunt for the play-offs with a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth in the Sky Bet Championship.<\/p>\n
Terry Devlin had put John Mousinho’s side ahead on the stroke of half-time but Rangers deservedly equalised through Dunne\u2019s header after an improved second-half showing.<\/p>\n
The Dundalk-born defender headed home from Nicolas Madsen’s corner on the hour mark, coincidentally his second goal at Fratton Park in successive seasons.<\/p>\n
Leaders Coventry stretched their lead at the top to eight points following a hard-fought 1-0 win over Swansea.<\/p>\n
Ephron Mason-Clark’s emphatic finish just before half-time was enough to give the Sky Blues a ninth home Championship win of the season.<\/p>\n
Stan Mills scored a brilliant individual winning goal a minute from time to give managerless Oxford a 2-1 victory over Southampton at the Kassam Stadium.<\/p>\n
Three Republic of Ireland internationals started for the Saints – currently 12th in the table – Gavin Bazunu, Ryan Manning and Finn Azaz, the latter blazing over the crossbar from nine yards in the first half and then teeing up a late chance for Adam Armstrong but Oxford keeper Jamie Cumming pulled off a superb save.<\/p>\n
High-flying Hull missed the chance to go third after twice coming from behind to salvage a 2-2 draw away to rock-bottom Sheffield Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, who took step closer to a takeover on Christmas Eve when a consortium led by James Bord was named as the preferred bidder by administrators, initially led through Svante Ingelsson before Mohamed Belloumi claimed City’s first equaliser.<\/p>\n
Matt Crooks earned the Tigers a point at Hillsborough with a 65th-minute leveller after Bailey Cadamarteri – son of former Everton player, Danny – had restored the Owls’ advantage.<\/p>\n
Iman Louza played a starring role with two assists as Watford came from behind to win 2-1 at Leicester and claim back-to-back victories for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
Watford skipper Louza crossed for Mattie Pollock to head the winner in the 65th minute, after teeing up Othmane Maamma for the away side’s leveller on the stroke of half-time.<\/p>\n
Jordan James had fired Leicester into the lead in the seventh minute with a deflected effort from Jordan Ayew’s pass but the Foxes were unable to find an equaliser once Watford went ahead.<\/p>\n
Top-six hopefuls Millwall and Ipswich played out a goalless draw in the lunchtime clash at The Den, captain Dara O’Shea at the heart of the visitors’ defence as they secured a clean sheet.<\/p>\n
First-half goals from Anis Mehmeti and Ross McCrorie helped Bristol City climb into the play-off zone with a 2-1 victory over West Brom at The Hawthorns.<\/p>\n
Ousmane Diakite headed home Mikey Johston’s corner with five minutes remaining but otherwise, Albion struggled to create chances.<\/p>\n
Jack Robinson rescued a point for Birmingham in a bad-tempered 1-1 draw against Derby which saw both teams finish with 10 men.<\/p>\n
The veteran defender netted his first goal for the club from close range in the 64th minute to cancel out Patrick Agyemang’s first-half header.<\/p>\n
Middlesbrough’s festive stutter continued as they were held to a goalless draw by Blackburn at the Riverside.<\/p>\n
The Teessiders suffered their first defeat under new head coach Kim Hellberg as they lost 2-0 at Bristol City in their final game before Christmas, while they were unable to find the net again as they were frustrated by a resolute Blackburn rearguard.<\/p>\n
Jovon Makama maintained his hot streak in front of goal as Norwich beat Charlton 1-0 at Carrow Road to give their bid to move clear of the relegation zone another boost.<\/p>\n
Preston extended their unbeaten run in the league to seven matches following a 0-0 draw away at Stoke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland defender Jimmy Dunne rescued a point to keep QPR in the hunt for the play-offs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-212349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}