The scoreline might not reflect it, but Tuesday's FA Cup third round replay between Leeds United and Walsall was much closer than the 5-2 final result suggests.

So impressive were Third Division Walsall at Elland Road that they received a standing ovation from the Leeds fans at the end of the match, having twice come from a goal down in regulation time to force the match into extra time.

The match was finally settled by a hat-trick by substitute Phil Masinga in the space of 11 minutes in extra time.

"He played well and everything he did when he came on worked out for him,'' said Bermudian Kyle Lightbourne, who plays for Walsall. "On his first goal our defenders didn't have the legs to keep up with him. He made a run into the box and no one could catch him and the ball got squared back to him and he hit it past the goalkeeper.'' Lightbourne explained how a light failure early in the game, during a good opening period by Walsall, knocked the visitors off their stride. "After five minutes the lights went out and they were out for 16 minutes,'' explained Lightbourne.

"We were on top for the first five minutes and had two chances that on another day would have gone in. After the game restarted they went down on their first attack and scored and that changed the whole complexion of the game.'' Lightbourne went close with two half chances during the opening minutes before the light failure, one which went across the face of the goal from an angle and the other over the top.

"The second one was a turn and shot from outside the box and just went over the bar and the other when Carlton Palmer missed controlling the ball and I just nipped in and tried to put it in from a very tight angle and the ball just rolled across the face of the goal.

"I felt I contributed a lot to the team, I got brought down for the penalty and I felt I caused them a few problems. We went behind twice and pulled back to 2-2 and it showed a lot of character and guts.

"We have some good players in our team. The first thing the manager said was that we did ourselves proud.'' If it is any consolation Walsall can now concentrate solely on promotion with no possibility of a distraction from any of the cup competitions, having earlier this season been knocked out of the Coca Cola Cup by another Premier side, West Ham -- also in extra time -- at Upton Park.

On Saturday, Walsall's eight-game unbeaten run ended with an away loss to Torquay, having twice taken the lead before losing 3-2. However, Walsall are still in second place in the standings where the top two will gain automatic promotion and the next four will be involved in a play-off.

Top scorer Lightbourne has failed to add to his 16 goals in the last few games but he is optimistic all that will change soon as Walsall return to league action this weekend against Darlington.

"We definitely need to win against them,'' said Lightbourne. "We drew with them at their place. There are some important games coming up for us.'' Lightbourne is finding himself more closely marked these days as he is finding himself given less space in and around the box.

"The last few games in our division teams have been putting man to man marking on me so it is getting a bit tougher but I'll just have to try to weather that,'' Lightbourne conceded.

"If I end up with 30 goals that's more than reasonable because they (managers) are looking for you to average at least 20 goals a season and if you get anything over 20 it's a bonus.

"It's a very long season where you can see your form dip and come back, not like in Bermuda where the (league) season is 18 games. We've played about 32-33 games already when I look back I've scored about every other game. If you're close to a goal every other game then you're doing a good job.'' By the time Walsall end their season on May 6 with a visit to Lightbourne's old club, Scarborough, they will have played 42 league matches which works out to be about 50 in total, including the cup matches.

"So anything over 20 goals is good but I'm going to push to try to get close to 30,'' said the Bermudian who has gotten a lot of publicity lately.

"There's been a lot of interest since we've been in the cup and we were on Match of the Day in our first match with Leeds and they should be showing the highlights of last night's game on TV as well, especially with the game going into extra time,'' said Lightbourne.

Kyle Lightbourne