The standard had been raised in support of Carlisle United, but the message of inspiration passed them by. Justice was served on the most fearless team in Cumbria last night.

Eleven white knights swept into the county yesterday and left behind a state of desolation worthy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. When the cavalry ride again, their blood-stained banner will fly at the only stage befitting of a squad who have long since abandoned the concept of surrendering alive.

Wembley called to Leeds United last night and the reply that came was resounding in its conviction. Four days ago their cause seemed lost, but United have resisted the compulsion to go quietly into the night. This, instead, may be the crisp dawn that Elland Road has waited so long to see.

SEND YOUR MESSAGES OF SUPPORT TO LEEDS UNITED BY CLICKING HERE - WE'LL PUBLISH THE LOT.

Gary McAllister is a man of few words, and is therefore a man worth heeding. Never quoted for effect, his promise that the second leg of United's play-off semi-final against Carlisle would compensate for the underwhelming nothing of the first was nothing less than a gross understatement.

The atonement made by Leeds in Cumbria was too exceptional to be dismissed as compensation; too extraordinary to be housed in the same category as routine victories.

WE WANT YOUR CELEBRATION PICTURES. SEND THEM IN BY CLICKING HERE - WE'LL PUBLISH THE LOT ON THE WEB AND IN THE PAPER.

United set out with a gun against their temple but it was the body of Carlisle which was riddled with bullets by full-time at Brunton Park, both fired by the lethal boot of Jonathan Howson. On an evening when the order was kill or be killed, Leeds brought forth the streak of courage that McAllister knew his players possessed.

Bravery was in evidence from the outset in Cumbria and displayed in no clearer manner than the team selected by McAllister for what threatened to be the club's final contest of the season, 47 games after it began.

Tempted as he was to react to Monday's 2-1 defeat to Carlisle at Elland Road by cutting the individuals who had under-performed from his line-up, McAllister thought better of change and sent forward an unaltered side.

Certain players were lucky to be involved; Howson even agreed that his own omission would have been justified after a personal contribution three days earlier which had been so painfully ineffective.

He was not the only member of McAllister's squad to redress that shortfall in Cumbria and to redress it emphatically. At the point where his 91st-minute shot rippled Keiren Westwood's net, sinking Carlisle's distraught players into the turf, the criticism earned at Elland Road had faded into complete silence. All that remained was a club and a city that are once again joined at the hip.

McAllister's willingness to trust implicitly in what he understood to be his strongest line-up was a personal triumph, and one of many.

An argument will be made – and understandably so – that the goal produced by Dougie Freedman with five minutes of injury-time played at Elland Road was the source of United's 3-2 defeat of Carlisle over two legs, but it is a verdict which overlooks the way in which the tie was settled last night.

Freedman's goal was significant but the stronger hand still lay with John Ward. The semi-final was Carlisle's to forego with 90 minutes remaining, but the second leg at Brunton Park was not a game which the Cumbrian club could be accused of losing. It was, in fact, a game which Leeds won.

The credit due is too vast to detail in full, but some of it does not deserve to go unmentioned.

Howson's two goals were the crux of United's win, but their midfield was as magical last night as it was inept on Monday. Jonathan Douglas' protection of McAllister's defence was authoritative, and the unrivaled influence of Neil Kilkenny in the second half was a force that Carlisle could not resist.

The Cumbrian club discovered last night what it means to have a season ruined in the blink of an eye, and in no way was their contribution to the semi-final deserving of defeat.

When the ultimate call to arms came, however, it was United's players who stepped forward in greater numbers and with greater purpose. Last night's scoreline was no distortion of a game which Leeds had set their minds on settling inside 90 minutes long before Howson's second strike.

McAllister had predicted the importance of the opening goal, and his concern was understandable. An early concession by his players would have been catastrophic, unwilling though he was to admit that fact, and scenario which saw Howson bring the aggregate score level after only 10 minutes was close to perfection.

The irony of his first goal was that it came initially from a weak clearance from Casper Ankergren which faded towards the left touchline.

David Prutton kept the ball in-field by flicking it towards Jermaine Beckford, whose header released Freedman to the left of Westwood's box. The striker's cross looped into the six-yard area where Howson had the time and the freedom to control the delivery and lash it over the line with a sweep of his left foot.

The goal rendered Carlisle's promising start irrelevant, and the fact that there were only two other chances of serious note in the first half was to McAllister's liking.

Westwood parried a shot from Freedman after Evan Horwood played his goalkeeper into difficulty, and Casper Ankergren blocked a low effort from Marc Bridge-Wilkinson with his legs in injury-time following a direct approach which neither Paul Huntington nor Lubomir Michalik were able to deal with.

Bridge-Wilkinson had caused havoc at Elland Road, but he was subdued last night by United's intensity in midfield. No less significant was the inability of Simon Hackney to offer anything to Carlisle on the left wing. Instrumental on Monday, Hackney was almost anonymous at Brunton Park and after the interval, he was nothing more than a passenger.

However late Howson's goal might have come – and it was not as close to the last-gasp at Freedman's had been – there was no disputing that the more serious attempt to win the game during the final 45 minutes had been made by Leeds.

Kilkenny pulled a wasteful shot across goal after running onto an unselfish lay-off from Jermaine Beckford, and a low strike from Freedman was pushed away with one hand by the ever-impressive Westwood. The margin was horribly fine, meanwhile, in the 79th minute when Bradley Johnson headed Kilkenny's corner against the outside of the left-hand post.

It was a portent of the drama to come. Alan Wiley, the match referee, indicated a solitary minute of injury-time as the 90th arrived, but the belief that an extra half-hour had become a formality was shattered by Howson.

The midfielder was played into space at the edge of Carlisle's box, and the absence of a chaperone left him free to hook a low shot across Westwood and into the right-hand corner of the net. It did not take the explosive reaction of the 1,600 away supporters in the stand behind Ankergren's goal to confirm that the tie was won.

Carlisle restarted the game but with the forlorn expression of a team who knew the clock had run too far to save them.

Wiley's whistle brought Ward's players to their knees and left United reaching for the stars that will be offered so readily at Wembley. The order from McAllister, as it was last night, will simply be to seize the day.