United's captain could have counted on two hands the remaining seconds when Antony Sweeney intervened with immaculate timing to grasp the point that Hartlepool United had threatened to claim throughout the closing half-hour at Victoria Park.

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Sweeney eluded Leeds' defence in the third minute of injury-time and applied his head to Hartlepool's final opportunity, whipping the ball over Casper Ankergren and inviting United's players to kick themselves black and blue for the length of their short journey home.

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Simon Grayson declined to beat himself up, defending a 2-2 draw as a point gained.

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The scowl on Naylor's face as he walked out of Victoria Park said otherwise, giving his own appraisal of the loss of two points that were at United's fingertips. By the end of Sweeney's celebration, there was barely time for the game to restart.

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How greatly Leeds will rue his goal is difficult to say. Demoralising though it was, League One did what it could to reduce the cost of their concession on a weekend when the division's prominent clubs stalled en masse.

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United's draw at Victoria Park was not, in the circumstances, a fabulous result, but it was no more punishing than Charlton's scrambled draw at Swindon or Norwich's defeat at Millwall, the end of eight successive victories for League One's leading team.

A break in the Canaries' ceaseless momentum was overdue and it was unfortunate that Leeds lacked the bloody-minded resilience to properly exploit it. Sweeney's header denied them a priceless victory; it also prevented Leeds from joining Norwich in first place, albeit reduced to second on goal difference.

At least the gap had narrowed, Grayson said positively. There was an air of realism about United's manager at full-time and a reluctance to dwell too long on Sweeney's goal or the timing of it.

As the coach of a team who laid claim to an FA Cup replay against Tottenham Hotspur with a penalty scored six minutes into stoppage-time, any mention of luck on Saturday evening would have sounded precious and not a little hypocritical.

Leeds have had their share of late goals this season, so often the sign of a confident team, but what goes around comes around. Hartlepool were worth their draw regardless of how dramatically it arrived.

It was that replay against Spurs which concerned Grayson beforehand and led Naylor to predict that the result at Victoria Park would hinge on United's concentration and resilience at the end of a tiring week.

Leeds went out of the FA Cup on their shield on Wednesday night, and the likely consequences of that performance were apparent to their manager. Having eased his squad through light training on Thursday and prepared them thoroughly the following day, Grayson could only hope the strain of handling Tottenham would not show itself in Hartlepool.

For an hour, an uninformed spectator would have struggled to spot fatigue among United's players.