Tony Mowbray was a relieved man after watching Middlesbrough hold off a battling Nottingham Forest side to win 2-1 at the Riverside Stadium.

Boro looked to be firmly on course for their first Championship victory of 2012 on Tuesday night when Marvin Emnes' deflected effort and Lukas Jutkiewicz's 20-yard strike immediately before and after half-time gave them a two-goal cushion.

From seemingly out of nowhere, though, Joel Lynch's 66th-minute header halved the deficit and Forest's cause was further helped when Kevin Thomson was sent off for two bookable offences 15 minutes from time.

To their credit, the hosts held on for a 2-1 victory - their first over Forest in seven attempts.

"We worked very hard for it," Mowbray said.

"And yet from being very comfortable at one stage at 2-0 and playing some nice football in the first half and asking questions of them, you get a sloppy goal to concede and the sending off on the back of that left us digging in.

"The pleasing aspect is the resilience the team showed in the last quarter of an hour to see the game out.

"But it wasn't as comfortable as we would have liked."

Thomson's dismissal for two late challenges in the space of eight minutes on Robbie Findlay and Adlene Guedioura respectively left Mowbray criticising referee Paul Tierney's performance.

"I think the first booking, he's just trying to nick the ball away with his toe," said Mowbray.

"Is it a booking coming from behind like that? I don't know, the game's mad if it is.

"The second one, he's tried to block a cross and the boy (Guedioura) has kicked through and caught his foot. There was no malice in that.

"The official seemed to be pretty busy, he seemed to be on top of everything and he got a bit anxious at times.

"It is what it is, it doesn't matter as the three points are in the bag but I think the officials made the game a bit more difficult for themselves than it actually was."

Forest boss Steve Cotterill was slightly aggrieved his side could not claim a share of the spoils for their endeavour.

The visitors had largely been second best up until Lynch got them back into the game but only the crossbar denied a superb 30-yard effort from Guedioura, who was roundly booed by the home fans for his part in Thomson's dismissal.

When asked whether his side deserved a draw, Cotterill responded: "On chances, probably, yeah.

"We've given away two sloppy goals and we're disappointed with the

goals but we deserved something out of the game for sure.

"We conceded at awful times but still created enough chances - even at 2-0 down - to come back and win the game.

"Obviously later on, when you've got the last 15-20 minutes or so and you're playing against 10 men, you're going to get create more.

"But even with the 11 on the pitch, the second half after the goal, after we dealt with it, we were the better team then."

Cotterill did admit Forest were particularly poor in the opening half, when Boro largely controlled the tempo, and believed his side's profligacy proved costly.

"In the first half we didn't get out of the blocks, didn't pass the ball quick enough and I'm disappointed with that first half performance," added Cotterill.

"We still created three or four chances in the first half to score and didn't."