Lee Andrews carried the ball out of defence, only to run the ball into Salisbury. The cruellest of ricochets fell to Matthew Hockley who put Martin Gritten clear to slot home.

Carlisle may have felt hard done by, but the high flying Gulls had plenty of chances to have wrapped the game up long before their last gasp winner, only poor finishing letting them down.

Manager Roddy Collins blamed poor defending for the defeat and said : “Inexperience at the back has cost us today, big time. Two minutes into the game and we were cut open very easy and I put that down to inexperience. Then with seconds to go the ball should have been in row “Z” but we try to be clever and play the ball from the back. It wasn’t a cruel blow it was bad defending.

“I was disappointed for the players, they grafted hard and played some fantastic passing play and I felt we could have scored more goals. It’s their well being I’m concerned about because they’re young lads and when you play like that and get nicked three minutes into injury time it can have an effect on the players.

“I will work on them and sort out the problem we have at the back. There was a lot of great play today and we always looked like we were going to score a goal and that has been lacking up until today. There were a lot of positives in the performance but inexperience cost us in the end”

A printing error on the Carlisle programme showed the date of the game as 6 October. It appeared to be an omen as the Carlisle defence failed to turn up. In a torrid opening few minutes Gritton left Michael Taylor for dead and should have scored but Peter Keen got down well to save.

Carlisle’s beleaguered defence were unable to stem the tide. With just two minutes on the clock leading scorer David Graham latched onto a loose ball ten yards out and with the help of a deflection from the hapless Taylor, fired the Gulls in front.

Gritten then headed narrowly wide from a Kevin Hill corner before the Cumbrians got on target when Craig Farrell headed a Brian Shelley cross straight at Kevin Dearden.

On 19 minutes Hill was unlucky to see his cross shot fly narrowly wide after Graham had played him clear but the Cumbrians, with four debutantes, were slowly getting to grips with the game.

A Mark Magennis cross was headed over by Darren Kelly and Leon Osman shot narrowly wide from a Mark Summerbell through ball.

The increased Carlisle pressure brought an equaliser on 30 minutes. An innocuous looking cross from Magennis somehow crept past a hesitant Dearden, for Farrell to snap up the loose ball to slot home.

In a frantic last minute of the half Dearden went full length to turn a Farrell shot over the bar and then Kelly had a shot cleared off the line by Alex Russell. Then a superb 40 yard diagonal ball from Magennis found Farrell who chested down only to volley over the bar.

After the break John Sutton headed over a Shelley cross and a great run and shot from Osman flew narrowly over.

On 63 minutes Hazell almost gifted Carlisle an own goal, heading a Taylor cross narrowly wide of the post.

As Carlisle continued to push forward Torquay were beginning to capitalise on the gaps at the back and Marvin Brown should have done better than screw his shot wide of the post, after Hankin had sent him racing clear.

Russell then capitalised on a Shelley mistake but saw his lob over Keen go narrowly wide. Brown was next to benefit, after springing the offside trap, but his left foot shot was straight at Keen.

Gritton’s killer goal came three minutes into injury time but Will McDonagh had a great chance to level seconds later but blasted high over the bar with the goal at his mercy.

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