SALISBURY CITY'S hopes of landing a plum home tie against Paul Merson's Walsall were sunk 3-2 in front of a 1,195 crowd at Slough Town yesterday.

After twice battling back from behind, Whites almost forced a replay when midfielder Wayne Turk found himself with a free header in the third minute of injury time, but he missed from two yards out.

Not only did it deny City their chance of repeating last season's FA Cup heroics when they travelled to Sheffield Wednesday in the first round proper, but it could have cost them a potential £100,000 jackpot from SKY TV who were considering covering the Walsall tie.

General manager Nick Holmes, who made a flying visit back from the States to take charge in the absence of assistant boss Barry Blankley, said: "I thought we'd done enough to earn a replay and we had a great chance at the end to get one - but that's Cup football.

"We spoke about concentration before the match and it was lack of it that let us down. That's the difference between us and full-time professionals.

"It makes it worse that we could have played Walsall at home."

City got off to the worst possible start, giving away a free kick on the edge of their box and watching in despair as Alex Haddow swerved it into the bottom corner with just one minute and 47 seconds gone.

They hit back with a timely reply two minutes later as Robbie Matthews rose to head in Sean Cook's near-post cross, but that good work was undone after a quarter of an hour when Ian Hodges headed in a Glen Harris corner.

Cook, Matt Tubbs and Craig Davis all had decent chances for Salisbury before Adam Wallace eventually levelled with a 70th-minute penalty awarded for handball by Darron Wilkinson.

Wilkinson made amends in the 87th minute, slotting the winner home after Salisbury had wasted countless opportunities to clear the danger.