Wolves and Birmingham City served up a derby that offered the chasing pack little hope either is about to crack in the Championship promotion race.

A game which could have been sliced in neat halves, the first coloured blue and the second shaded in gold, underlined the merits of the teams’ dual domination of the top of the table.

A point apiece may have been the result which best suited the clubs jostling for position outside of the automatic promotion places as it prevented one or the other escaping their range still further.

But the quality of Blues’ first half authority and the vigour of Wolves second half comeback not only made for a rousing spectacle but gave the rest of the division a glimpse of the substance behind this West Midlands pincer move on promotion. 

Up to the point where Cameron Jerome fired the visitors in front after 48 minutes, Blues at last looked like the team they are expected to be – strong, composed, assured and menacing.

But in one of those curious features of football, it was Wolves who re-discovered themselves from that point of adversity, going on to mount a thrilling revival which drew a deserved equaliser from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake before they closed the afternoon banging noisily on the door of Maik Taylor’s goal.

Yes, a good day for both teams, a good day for both managers.

Especially Mick McCarthy, whose second-half substitutions and switches helped attach jump leads to a team engine that had been misfiring.

Coming on the heels of McCarthy having to think on his feet – or should that be foot? – to negotiate a safe passage through the carnage of Bramall Lane, it surely climaxed a highly-satisfying week for the Molineux manager.

And he will not undervalue his point. This was a Blues team which started with all but David Murphy able to claim Premier League experience; in a reverse image, only Michael Gray could do the same in a Wolves team now wholly dependent on the largely young and raw recruits McCarthy was asked to seek and recruit when he took the job in 2006. 

They are growing with every game and this past week can only have continued to banish any secret doubts they still foster about either the merits of their big lead at the top of the division or their ability to last the course.

Wolves are surely certain to meet with some rocky periods between now and May – it would be foolishly optimistic to think otherwise.

But having fought their way through the Blades’ aerial bombardment in midweek, the manner in which these Premier League wannabes wrestled control from Alex McLeish’s Premier League Used-to-bes can only sustain them when the going gets tough.

They were deeply annoyed with themselves during the previous ‘blip’ which culminated in that five-goal fiasco at Norwich, a result which now sticks out like an embarrassing uncle at a Christmas party.

Captain Karl Henry recalled how that drubbing had prompted a series of mocking texts from pals and fellow pros scattered around the Championship along the lines of Wolves’ bubble finally having burst.

He wasn’t alone.

Other team mates received similar messages laced with the gallows’ humour of their trade but Henry revealed how it merely served to re-charge his team’s determination not to allow their sudden decline to gather any more momentum and seven wins and a draw suggests they have done just that.

Throughout this period, Wolves have seen Chris Iwelumo score goals and provide leadership, Michael Mancienne add class and pace to central defence, Carl Ikeme toss his hat into the goalkeepers’ ring and familiar contributors such as Michael Kightly, Ebanks-Blake, Henry and Kevin Foley maintain their high standards.

But no-one did more to lead Wolves away from the self-doubt which Blues’ best phase of the game appeared to encourage in the home camp then Stephen Ward.

You sense that some Wolves fans are still waiting for it all to go wrong for the striker who has arrived at left back via midfield. But he just gets better and better in a position he could never have imagined he would find himself and it was his driving adventures in support of Kightly, shrewdly switched to the left by McCarthy, which not only led directly to his team’s equaliser but set the mood for his team’s revival.

The goal was yet another beauty to follow those three peaches from Bramall Lane – a clever curved and weighted pass by Kightly, chased down by Ward for a pull-back which Ebanks-Blake angled across Taylor with the expertise of a high-class finisher. At that stage, the arrival of Andy Keogh, Sam Vokes and David Edwards from the bench had re-invigorated Wolves, Vokes almost closing the game with a winner and Edwards advancing his claims for a starting role with a typically energetic and effective burst.

Blues simply could not alter the flow of the game by that point and their talk of disappointment at not having won was verbal posturing. 

They looked like a team quite happy with their point when Taylor threw himself to his left to keep out Vokes in the dying minutes.

But McLeish still had much to be positive about, especially in the new central midfield liaison between Lee Carsley – who is doing for Blues what Paul Ince once did for Wolves – and Nigel Quashie and the creative flourishes of James McFadden.

Behind them, the control Radhi Jaidi and Liam Ridgewell exerted over Iwelumo and Ebanks-Blake throughout this period was total while it should also be noted that the visiting manager had his own problems –  losing Seb Larsson before kick-off and Nicky Hunt and Kevin Phillips by half-time.

That Blues could have had the game sewn up by the break – Phillips amazingly letting his Molineux rabbits off the hook with a squandered chance right on half time – is indisputable.

But the quality of their first half football should provide them with real optimism that their best games are still ahead this season just as Wolves will not listen to any voices suggesting their’s are behind. 

Never mind the FA Cup ingredient tossed in by yesterday’s third round draw. 

It’s a promotion double for the West Midlands we all want and after this little contest . . . why not?

By Martin Swain.