Alan Irvine believes his side are still very much in the hunt for the Play-Offs after coming from behind to take home a point in a game billed by the press as "Bristol City's cup final".

A large crowd inside Ashton Gate was silenced when Youl Mawene stole in for a well taken equaliser, and with the Lilywhites having kept one of their chasers at bay with an excellent away day performance, the boss has cause for optimism at he looks up at the teams ahead of him.

"We're still in contention for the Play-Offs," he asserted after the game. "We're still needing other teams above us to drop points but I believe some will. It's just whether we can then get enough points for ourselves.

"I think we probably still need to get that one away win for ourselves, because while I think other teams will lose points, I don't think they will lose that many points."

As for the game itself, the gaffer believed that his side did enough to have won the game, but it just wasn't to be on this particular occasion, explaining:

"It was a good performance overall. We knew this was going to be a really tough game, and all the press coverage about Bristol City's attitude towards this game was really indicating that they saw it as a cup final - their biggest game of the season - and they had done some special deals to get a big crowd in here, so we knew we would have to be men and stand up to all of that. I think we did that, and I was delighted with that.

"They performed well for long periods of the game, and I thought we had some great opportunities to get a winning goal towards the end.

"Having said that, we had to defend well as well, and it was probably just about a fair result, even though I'm a little bit disappointed that we didn't quite make the right decisions or didn't quite make the right chance when we got in a number of good positions.

"It's always much easier to see these things when you're watching it from the sidelines, but I would have liked us to have made a couple of better decisions when we made those breaks late on.

"I thought we'd had the better of the game up to the point where we fell behind and I was disappointed about falling behind - it was probably the one time during the game where we didn't defend very well, and you get punished for that at this level.

"For our equaliser, Bradley Orr conceded the corner, which possibly he shouldn't have done, but that happens, and you've then got to be able to defend properly but fortunately Youl Mawene was able to move very well and get on the end of the ball - it was a terrific finish.

"Overall I probably thought it was just about a fair result."

North End made changes in midfield with Paul McKenna returning alongside debut boy Lee Williamson, while the gaffer admitted there were other potential changes involving Stephen Elliott and Callum Davidson that he opted not to make for differing reasons.

"I thought Lee Williamson's debut was very good," he claimed.

"I thought he played really well but he just cramped up towards the end and that's partly because he's not played in all the games recently, and it's probably partly because of all the tension of his debut.

"Stephen wasn't able to train with us until Thursday and obviously that was a concern and I had it in my mind that I might not have played him, but he's been really lively and I felt he was probably going to be ok for playing in the game.

"I'm glad I made that decision because I thought he was a threat to them for most of the day.

"I'm always hoping Callum Davidson will be back fit shortly. His problem has lingered on longer than anticipated and I'm hoping it will be behind him very soon.

"He was not quite ready today but we will re-assess him on Monday and see how he is. Obviously it's something that's frustrating for Callum and frustrating for us, but he keeps getting close but not quite close enough."