match report
coca-cola championship | tuesday 31st october 2006 | hillsborough

Sheffield Wednesday Tudgay 45 Coughlan 73 MacLean 90		3-2		Crystal Palace Kuqi 21 Soares 64
Attendance: 19,034 Referee: A Hall

starting eleven
Wednesday 4-4-2 | Palace 4-4-2

jones	flinders
simek	butterfield
coughlan	lawrence
bougherra	cort
hills	borrowdale
small	soares
lunt	fletcher
folly	watson
brunt	reich
burton	kuqi
tudgay	morrison

substitutes

maclean - burton (78 mins)	kennedy - reich (34 mins)
bullen - coughlan (86 mins)	mcanuff - watson (46 mins)
adamson	freedman - kuqi (76 mins)
whelan	kiraly
talbot	hudson

the report

Macca Magic at the death

Caretaker boss Sean McAuley extended his unbeaten run as Owls boss to three games as Wednesday surprisingly beat off the challenge of promotion hopefuls Crystal Palace.

An early error by John Hills allowed Shefki Kuqi to score on his unpopular return to Hillsborough, but on the stroke of half-time Marcus Tudgay struck his third goal in as many games to pull Wednesday level after good work by winger Wade Small.

Palace regained the advantage just past the hour mark when Tom Soares scored a great solo effort but once again the Owls showed their new found spirit when skipper Graham Coughlan headed them level in the 73rd minute from a Kenny Lunt corner. There was still more drama to come as substitute Steven MacLean headed an injury time winner to make it seven points from a possible nine for McAuley at the helm.

McAuley verdict:

"I can't fault the performance of the players at all so far."

"When I got this job I talked about having the right mentality. I wanted them to be free and to concentrate on the performance above anything else."

"We have managed to focus solely on the performance. We have more belief and the results have helped with that."