Neilson, who was yellow-carded for his protests after the full-time whistle, said: "We dominated the game, we should have won it by two or three goals at least, but we didn't take the chances and got done at the end by a bad decision.

"I didn't think there was contact at the time, I've seen the replay and there's none at all. You'd hope you'd get a referee who'd see that but it ends up being the pivotal moment in the game.

"But the most frustrating thing is we shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. We dominated the play.

"I always felt we could get a goal the longer it went, and we should have scored, the amount of chances we had, but that's why we didn't progress.

"I spoke to the ref but at the end of the day he's made a bad decision. When he looks back he'll realise he's made a bad decision and hopefully he learns from it."

Alloa counterpart Peter Grant hailed his part-time players after they recorded the club's first victory over Hearts – just four days on from a 3-0 loss to the Jambos in the league.

He said: "Some of their players will probably be on more (money) than our squad put together – maybe for the year not just a week.

"Some of the boys were working this morning, one of them until 4.30 am. Going into extra-time, I was a bit concerned about that but they showed the desire and commitment they have, along with their talent.

"They are so talented and, no matter who we play, we try to win, and I think we deserved it.

"Our goalie had a double save but (Hearts goalkeeper) Craig Gordon had the best save of the match. We thoroughly deserved it over the piece."