SEAN Dyche said his players showed an “outstanding mentality” to earn a late point at Cardiff and stretch their unbeaten run to nine games.

Burnley were staring their third defeat of the season in the face after twice coming unstuck at set pieces.

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But substitute Rouwen Hennings’ 85th-minute goal was the catalyst for the comeback, and a Michael Keane header from the returning Dean Marney’s cross was turned into his net by Matthew Connolly to salvage a 2-2 draw deep into stoppage time.

“We have a relentless nature. I’ve mentioned it many times, we don’t go under and if we do it will be from good play from the opposition and not from our own lack of will and desire,” said Dyche.

“I thought that was absolutely on show.

“We get the first from Rouwen, who has a terrific mentality to be left out of the side, come on and look sharp and deliver a performance, which gets us back in it.

“We get a scratch of luck with the equaliser, but I think we’d deserved it by that stage because we weren’t just trying to beat the 11 in front of us – the decisions all afternoon didn’t go anywhere near our way.

“We dealt with that well mentally and focused on the game rather than the decisions.”

Dyche was stunned that Burnley were not awarded a penalty when Lee Peltier’s raised hand denied George Boyd a certain goal at 0-0, and he was sure he was not the only one.

“I think everyone was stunned in the stadium,” he said.

“I don’t know, but that’s how it looked to me.

“When you see the ball’s going into the top corner and suddenly it’s not from a flailing arm from their player – it seemed like everyone saw it apart from the most important person, which is the referee.

“It’s not just a penalty, it’s got to be a sending off for (deliberate) handball, so of course it changes the game.

“We’ve been on the wrong side of penalties this season.

“We did get one last week for pulling shirts, which was a very good decision and a brave decision for the referee.”

Of yesterday’s failed penalty appeals, Dyche added: “I was very annoyed with it but we had to go with that.

“They (Cardiff) seemingly responded a bit to that.

“They had a lot of corners and set pieces in the first half and unfortunately we conceded to that.

“They didn’t really open us up.

“We played some good stuff overall but 2-0 down with seven, eight, nine minutes to go you’re thinking it’s going to be tough.

“But the energy, the mentality of the team, we were putting a lot of pressure on Cardiff at that stage and I thought we did in the second half.”