Sheffield Wednesday - 2 Wolves - 2English League Division One: The clock above the centre circle said 2.15. Until then it had been a very good afternoon to be a fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers. The thousands of them who had turned the Leppings Lane End into a sea of old gold were bobbing in happiness. One half of the Premiership bargain seemed complete, Colin Cameron having given Wolves a lead in 47 seconds. Meanwhile it was 0-0 at West Brom. Wolves were up at that point.

And then the scoreboard in the corner beside the Wolves hordes sprang into life. It was a goalflash from the Hawthorns and few thought Crystal Palace had scored. They were right. The bobbing ebbed to a standstill.

Everyone connected with Wolves knew their chance of automatic promotion had drifted away. They knew they were now in the treacherous waters of the play-offs. Most significantly the Wolves players knew, and effectively stopped playing. They still ran for the ball, made tackles, but there was suddenly no team to speak of. Even after Jolean Lescott gave Wolves an equaliser of their own two minutes after Shefki Kuqi had made it 2-1, the brief surge of optimism that arose was punctured by news of Albion's second.

"It's difficult to keep going when you know it's 2-0 at the Hawthorns," said Jones of his players. He faces the task of reflating a squad that saw an 11-point lead eroded in just over a month.

Wolves were pretty poor yesterday, only the captain Alex Rae and the two centre-halves Lescott and Ludovic Pollet played well, and this is a difficult time to rediscover momentum. Moreover, Wolves now visit a Norwich City side with some of its own.

Driven on by the relentless Alan Quinn, Wednesday should have had a 35th-minute penalty when Michael Oakes felled Kuqi, but waited only eight minutes more for Simon Donnelly's somewhat fortunate in-off-a-knee strike.

Kuqi, who later missed a penalty, gave Wednesday a short-lived lead, Lescott looping a header in to give a last burst of hope. But soon "One Gary Megson" was ringing out around Hillsborough. The West Brom manager played for Wednesday, of course, like his father Don before him.

Guardian Service

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: Pressman, Haslam, Bromby, Broomes, Burrows, Hamshaw, McLaren (Gallacher 70), Quinn, Sibon (Morrison 85), Donnelly, Kuqi. Subs Not Used: Siddall, Westwood, McCarthy. Goals: Donnelly 43, Kuqi 53.

WOLVES: Oakes, Halle, Lescott, Pollet, Camara (Naylor 85), Newton, Cameron, Rae, Kennedy (Cooper 60), Sturridge, Blake (Miller 76). Subs Not Used: Murray, Andrews. Booked: Naylor. Goals: Cameron 1, Lescott 56.

Referee: P Durkin (Dorset).