Neil Warnock lambasted the referee, Mike Jones, describing the official’s performance as a “disgrace” and “farcical” after watching his 10-man Cardiff side come unstuck in a heated Severnside derby.

Warnock questioned whether Jones wanted to be at the game and accused the referee of stoking the atmosphere to boiling point. He did, though, have no complaints over Omar Bogle’s red card, for an unsavoury lunge on Marlon Pack but felt the Bristol City midfielder, by that point, should have not been on the field.

For Lee Johnson this was the sweetest of victories, a first in five years over Cardiff, who now have the Robins breathing down their necks in the Championship, a point and a place behind them in fourth. The Bristol City manager had urged his players to make themselves heroes and it was the defender Aden Flint who popped up to power home a winner after goals by Callum O’Dowda and Bogle, who was sent off 10 minutes into the second half.

This match-up was never going to be short of needle. Warnock enjoyed a rivalry with Johnson’s father, Gary, when he was in charge of Bristol City, which stemmed from Freddie Sears’ disallowed goal for Crystal Palace here in 2009. Warnock said he was cheated that day. This defeat, Cardiff’s third in the Championship this season, again left him aggrieved.

“What disappointed me is that we have got a Premiership referee, and he’s a good referee, but I expect him to be consistent,” Warnock said. “Sometimes they come into the Championship and they don’t really want to be here when they are Premiership referees and today I didn’t think he was consistent.

“I am going to ask him: ‘Did you prepare correctly?’ I thought today that was as poor as I have seen him, consistency-wise.

“The worst tackle of the game was Pack on [Sol] Bamba, over the top, he saw it and he knew – I could have sworn he was going to book him. He had already been booked in the first half and after 48 minutes, it should have been 10 men. He must have thought: ‘Forty-eight minutes, it’s a bit early, give him the benefit of the doubt’ and to not even give him a yellow card, which was a disgrace.

“When you see [Lee] Peltier getting booked [after four minutes], it’s farcical for me. The worst tackle on the pitch and there’s no yellow card?”

A key moment as Omar Bogle is sent off. Photograph: Evere/Huw Evans/Rex/Shutterstock

Warnock may have relished his role as the pantomime villain but it was a pair of Bristolians and academy graduates who took centre stage for the hosts, with Joe Bryan and Bobby Reid dovetailing superbly. “We’ve asked Bobby and Joe to step up and police the dressing room a little bit,” Johnson said. “Those two boys have got Bristol City in their blood and they know how much this one means to the fans.

“When I was a player here Bobby Reid couldn’t hit the goal from the 18-yard box because his legs were so skinny. I have watched them become men.”It was Bryan who fed O’Dowda for the opener after 20 minutes. The midfielder drove forward with gusto from the left before picking out the winger, who jinked inside before wrapping his left boot around the ball and beyond Neil Etheridge in the Cardiff goal.

Before the break, Junior Hoilett had twice threatened from the flanks before it was a case of third time lucky, when the Cardiff winger bamboozled Hordur Magnusson to tee up Bogle from close range.

Once Cardiff were reduced to 10 men after the interval, the flow dwindled. Nothing could stop Flint’s powerful header a few minutes later, however. When Magnusson’s mammoth long throw from the right looped into the area, Flint sent his header into the top corner for his fourth goal of the season. He cupped his ear in celebration – mirroring the celebration by Scott Murray (now City’s kit man) at Ninian Park in 2001 – before holding aloft a shirt on the touchline, in reference to Ben Pritchard, the ill grandson of the City director Doug Harman.

The hosts almost added a third when the impressive Josh Brownhill struck a post late on, but by then it was already a case of job well done.