Distraught Shearer's bland spot

But he was a distraught figure as he trudged off at full time - few, least of all himself, remembering that he was the man who had grabbed a point for his side when he headed Laurent Robert's cross home with two minutes of normal time left.

'It was the worst penalty I've ever hit,' he said after his third spot- kick failure in 26 attempts for Newcastle. 'I might have slipped a bit as I hit it but it was garbage.

' We have thrown away points today. With no disrespect to Ipswich, we should be beating teams like them, especially here at St James' Park.

'It's all right saying we came back twice from being down but we shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. But it's still in our hands and we've nothing to be frightened of.'

Shearer's penalty miss, though, was only part of the story. Twice the Newcastle captain had efforts disallowed - first, in the 44th minute, when he outmuscled John McGreal and lobbed Sereni, then, 20 minutes from time, when he nudged Chris Makin before heading home Nolberto Solano's cross.

By the time referee Mike Riley chalked off the second Shearer effort, Newcastle were 2-1 behind and facing a mountain they looked illequipped to climb.

Defensively they were often a shambles and twice Marcus Bent punished their uncertainty. Five minutes into the second half he raced on to a Marcus Stewart flick- on, ignored appeals for offside and coolly sent his shot between Shay Given's legs.

And in the 63rd minute - three minutes after Laurent Robert had restored parity with an exquisite curling leftfoot free-kick - Bent struck again, this time after Nikos Dabizas and Andy O'Brien made a complete mess of a McGreal long ball.

Shearer added: 'We defended very poorly as a side. When you defend like that you cannot expect to win, but we certainly had a chance to win it at the end, only for me to take a rubbish penalty.'

Ipswich goal hero Bent was unhappy about Riley's decision to award the Newcastle penalty, just seconds before the third minute of injury time.

He said: 'The referee made a lot of horrible decisions and I'd have been gutted if Alan Shearer had scored the penalty.

' We deserved all three points. We fought hard and team morale is still very good despite where we are. We're confident we can stay in the Premier League and this result will do us a power of good.'