AT the end of a day when sport seemed of even less consequence than ever in the context of world affairs, it was appropriate that no-one went home entirely happy with his lot.

Wanderers - the Premiership leaders let us not forget - scraped through to the third round of the Worthington Cup, avoiding the embarrassment of being beaten on their own turf by a lowly Second Division club.

They needed a last gasp equaliser to take the tie into extra time, a sensational penalty save to keep their noses in front and ended up defending a fragile lead with 10 men for 22 minutes after Colin Hendry - making his first appearance of the season - was controversially sent off.

An automatic suspension will add to the veteran Scot's woes but Wanderers' problems will not end there: Gareth Farrelly - the only member of the team Sam Allardyce sent out at Leeds who also started the cup tie - limped off with a hamstring injury that will at least rule him out of Saturday's home game against Southampton and could keep him sidelined for longer.

The manager was in sombre mood as he calculated the cost of the victory and pondered whether the tragic events of the day could have had any bearing on the mood of his players.

"It's possible," he considered. "I would have thought most of them sat for most of the afternoon - when they possibly might have gone to bed and rested - and watched the encounters with the same amazement as I had; glued and fixed to the pictures for the best part of four hours. I couldn't take my eyes off it so if they were the same - and I know one or two were because they've been commenting on it - it might have detracted from this game.

"That's not an excuse for not doing your job properly but what's happened is a huge tragedy, something quite staggering and leaves you lost for words to describe how you feel about it."

Walsall boss Ray Graydon was not lost for words as his disappointment at his team's failure to secure a famous victory bordered on anger. He certainly did not want plaudits after seeing his Saddlers lead with just 60 seconds of normal time to play.

"I don't want to see us referred to as gallant losers because we had a classic opportuinity to win a game against a team that is top of the Premiership," he said forlornly.

"It's not good enough for me and not good enough for a team of mine to come to Bolton and have an opportunity like they've had and to throw it away.

"You don't deserve a 'Well done' when you lose games continually when opportunities are put in front of you. We've had a fantastic opportunity to go through and to put Walsall's name in front of people, for players to be talked about as better players and it's not been taken."

Yet it was Wanderers, who have built their astonishing early season success in the Premiership on a well-disciplined defence, who had most cause for self-reproachment.

They had survived a scare or two before Jorge Leitao broke away from Ian Marshall to give Darren Wrack a tap-in for the first goal and never looked at all convincing at the back - even after Michael Ricketts and Dean Holdsworth had restored a semblance of normality by putting them 2-1 up with just seven minutes of normal time to play.

Goodness knows what damage substitute Darren Byfield might have caused if he had been on from the start but he turned the game in the space of two minutes.

First he got up to glance a Pedro Matias cross past Steve Banks for the equaliser then unselfishly teed up Moreira Herivelto's cross for Tony Barras to smash home to put Walsall in front again.

Wanderers appeared to be falling at the first hurdle for the second successive seson until Marshall made a nuisance of himself and Akinori Nishizawa, who had a lively debut, pounced in the fourth minute of added time to take the game into the extra period.

The Japanese international produced a delightful pass to set up Henrik Pedersen for what turned out to be the matchwinner in the 96th minute but that was not the end of the drama. Two minutes later Hendry sent Byfield tumbling, an offence which was judged - wrongly as video evidence later confirmed - to be inside the area, and double jeopardy was invoked - a red card AND a penalty.

To Wanderers' relief and to his own eternal credit, Banks saved the Barras spot kick.

"In the end there was some very good finishing, some not very good defending and a thrilling encounter for those who turned up," was the Allardyce analysis.

"But we didn't play to the level I would have expected. The attitude was wrong. At 2-1 we didn't see the game out - we've conceded more goals than we have in all our Premiership matches and that's a huge, huge worry.

"This was a first team game but at times they didn't treat it like that.

"Those players who have not been playing now know how far off they are!"