Wrexham led their Championship opener from the second minute to the 97th and still finished it with a point. Rubin Colwill, a Cardiff substitute with two days' training behind him, beat the wall with a free-kick when there was nothing left of the game, and the Welsh derby ended 1-1 at Cardiff City Stadium.
Cardiff were undone almost before they began. With Calum Chambers, Dylan Lawlor and Will Fish all injured, the left-back Joel Bagan had been moved inside alongside Gabriel Osho, and the makeshift pairing lasted barely two minutes. Cardiff half-cleared a Lewis O'Brien free-kick to Danny Imray, who sent it forward before anyone had reset; Osho played him onside, Kieffer Moore got beyond Bagan, and the finish went high past Nathan Trott. It was Moore's seventh goal against the club he left, and his first since February.
Wrexham looked the likelier side to score again for most of what followed. They had 18 shots to Cardiff's 11 and eight on target to three, while the hosts kept 67% of the ball and did much less with it. Moore glanced a header just over. Trott turned Callum Doyle's effort away at his near post with a foot, and later watched Doyle strike a post. Imray and Sam Smith were denied by the Cardiff goalkeeper too.
Brian Barry-Murphy sent on the Colwill brothers just after the hour, among several changes made to shift the game. Jack Moylan's deflected effort drifted wide, Dominic Hyam headed against his own crossbar, and then, with the six added minutes on the board almost gone, George Dobson brought down Joel Colwill on the edge of the area. His brother beat the wall and Anthony Patterson from the free-kick. Barry-Murphy's sprint from his technical area to celebrate cost him a yellow card.