GRAEME Souness has revealed how Wanderers' reputation for last-gasp giveaways encouraged Rovers not to give up in Saturday's Reebok derby.

Craig Short's injury-time equaliser in the same fixture last season plus a host of other squanderings were high on the agenda when the Ewood boss worked hard at half-time to keep his players' spirits up after Wanderers had dominated the first 45 minutes.

Even at 2-0 down Souness felt his team could get back in the hunt and was justified in his optimism as Matt Jansen on 50 minutes and Dwight Yorke in the fourth minute of overtime snatched a dramatic draw.

"Look at Bolton's results here last year," he said. "They got the lead early on then held on ... but they drew a lot of games or lost games with the last kick of the ball.

"They started well. Their intention was to get us on the back foot and they got a tremendous lift by getting the penalty after two minutes and they had us firmly on the back foot for almost all the first half. We didn't defend well prior to their second goal but all credit to us in the second half because we put them on the back foot.

"It would have been very hard on us if we hadn't got something out of the game."

Souness was furious with match ref Andy D'Urso, who awarded the penalty when he judged full-back Lucas Neill to have fouled Jay-Jay Okocha - a claim Sam Allardyce had sympathy with.

But he had less support for his argument that substitute Steven Reid's red-card tackle on Stelios two minutes from the end of normal time was a "great challenge".

"I thought he topped him," Allardyce said.

Not so, said Souness after offering a public show of support for his summer signing as he walked to the dressing rooms having lasted just 12 minutes of his debut.

"Some people might think it was an aggressive challenge but I thought it was a great challenge," the Rovers' boss said.

"He (Reid) has got the ball and he's made contact with the player and that can happen when you go aggressively. But it wasn't a nasty challenge.

"We will be appealing."