Cousin strike sees Tigers through

The England international fired over the top before the break and then saw another shot turned around the post by Tigers goalkeeper Matthew Duke before missing the target with a header at the death.

In the meantime, Tigers striker Daniel Cousin had needed no second invitation to seal a third-round replay victory when he converted Richard Garcia's cross from close range to book a home tie with Millwall in the fourth round.

The fact that victory was achieved without eight of Phil Brown's first-choice players simply rubbed salt into Magpie wounds on a night when both he and counterpart Joe Kinnear were sent to the stands by referee Phil Dowd.

The Magpies who enjoyed the better of the half and after a lively start, they went agonisingly close to a 21st-minute opener when Nicky Butt headed Danny Guthrie's free-kick against the crossbar with Duke beaten.

That proved to be a rare good quality delivery from Guthrie, who served up a series of later free-kicks invitingly for Duke, and although Charles N'Zogbia, who has spent much of the last fortnight angling for a move away from St James', Jonas Gutierrez and Damien Duff caused problems for City, they could not break the visitors down.

However, the Magpies were handed a glorious opportunity 11 minutes before the break. Paul McShane and Kamil Zayatte got themselves into a knot as they converged on a loose ball along with Owen and only succeeded in running into each other, leaving the striker in on goal. But the £17million man blasted his effort high over the crossbar to hand them a reprieve.

Owen saw another excellent go begging within two minutes of the restart, although this time he made Duke work to preserve his clean sheet.

But when the opening goal finally arrived with 80 minutes gone, it was at the other end when Cousin turned Garcia's cross home.

Substitute Kazenga LuaLua drove the ball across the face of goal, but just too far in front of fellow newcomer Andy Carroll three minutes later, but it was Owen who might have taken the tie into extra-time at the death, only to head another Guthrie cross over.