Hartlepool United 1 Sheffield United 1: Wilson return ends in Blades penalty shoot-out drama

JUST as well power was restored at Victoria Park because this one went the distance, Daniel Philliskirk netting the winning penalty at 10.24pm.

A pre-game electricity cut had seen kick-off delayed for 15 minutes and even when the action did get started it was still without juice inside the ground.

In the end it was substitute Philliskirk who lifted his sudden-death spot-kick into the roof of the net to send Danny Wilson’s men into the second round of the Carling Cup.

It was Wilson’s side who found the breakthrough just one minute shy of the half-hour mark following an incisive breakaway.

Debutant Nathaniel Mendez-Laing charged down the left flank, his teasing cross me by Stephen Quinn.

With the power generator beginning to motor back into action so too did the home side as they went in search of parity, Adam Boyd wriggling free of Neill Collins inside the area only to stab wide.

Mendez-Laing was making quite an impression in his first outing and the teenager swept United upfield in pursuit of a second just before the break.

Richard Cresswell kept stride with his new team-mate and was duly located but Flinders blocked his effort.

The last act of Mendez-Laing before his withdrawal was to sting the palms of Flinders with a close-range strike on 61 minutes.

The passing of that chance was to prove significant and, following the introduction of summer signings James Poole and Nathan Luscombe, Mick Wadsworth’s men began to work their way back into the tie.

The home side eventually drew level 10 minutes from time, Luscombe dropping a ball the wrong side of a static Harry Maguire and Collins and Tony Sweeney steamed in to volley home.

Sweeney retired clutching a groin soon after but United failed to find a way through Pools’ 10 men in the remaining minutes of normal time, the closest they came a Cresswell header, from Matthew Lowton’s centre, which looped onto the roof of the net.

And so it was to penalty kicks where, after Cresswell, Collins, Nick Montgomery and Lowton had converted, and Quinn missed, it was Philliskirk who kept his cool to take the headlines.

Hartlepool: Flinders; Austin, Collins, Hartley, Horwood; Solano (Luscombe 68), Liddle (Murray 78), Sweeney, Monkhouse; Nish, Boyd (Poole 64). Unused substitutes: Humphreys, Haslam, Baldwin, Rafferty.

Sheffield United: Simonsen, Lowton, Collins, Maguire, Lescinel; Williamson (McAllister 90), Montgomery, Doyle (Philliskirk 112), Quinn; Cresswell, Mendez-Laing (Slew 64). Unused substitutes: Harriott, Philliskirk, Conneely, Tonne, Long.

Referee: P Tierney (Wigan).