Sergej Jakirovic was proud of the way his Hull side regrouped after a “very poor” first half to take a point from their 2-2 home draw with Ipswich.

Hull held on to an unbeaten home record that had looked in grave danger in the opening 45 minutes, with the Tractor Boys by far the more dominant side as they led through Florentino Luis’ 22nd-minute strike.

After the break Hull rallied to equalise through Tim Iroegbunam’s 58th-minute effort, which was followed 10 minutes later by an expertly-taken Oli McBurnie free-kick to put the Tigers ahead.

Ipswich may have responded to deny Hull three points through Julio Enciso’s equaliser in the 74th minute, but Jakirovic praised his players for turning around an unpromising position.

“I respect that point, especially after the first half. We were not good, Ipswich were much better than us,” he said.

“After 30 minutes we maybe started to show something, but we were very poor. I think the crucial moment was a change to our system – a tactical substitution with Crooksy (Matt Crooks, who replaced John Egan at half-time).

“We started to push more, to press more, to be much more aggressive. All of a sudden we had control, we had possession and we scored two nice goals.

“We should have controlled the last 20 minutes better because Enciso scored an excellent goal, but still we could have defended it. But if you cannot win, at least don’t lose. I know we are waiting now for almost two months for a win, but I am still positive.

“My first sentence in the dressing room (at half-time) was, ‘You cannot play the second half as bad as that first half, there is no way’.

“They listened to me, they followed. The crowd today was also excellent, very loud, they pushed us out there.”

Gary O’Neil felt Ipswich were much the better side at the MKM Stadium and was left to rue mistakes which Hull punished.

“I thought we were excellent, the better side for almost all of it,” he said.

“There’s obviously disappointment that it doesn’t get us three (points), but a point on the road in the Premier League is still something.

“There was a lot of promise in the fact that we were much better than them in their own stadium. That takes some doing, they’re a good side and they’ve been doing well.

“You have to give them credit, they’ve done this against everybody. They’ve capitalised on mistakes.

“They don’t dominate the game, they don’t batter your goal, but if you make a mistake they will capitalise on it and that was the case today.”