Middlesbrough 1, Albion 1

Albion's season has been showcased by their resilience and refusal to buckle in the face of adversity.

They will need these attributes in abundance once again to shrug off the intense feeling of injustice in missing out on automatic promotion if they are going to prevail in the play-offs.

It is bad enough to lose out narrowly on goal difference to Middlesbrough with a draw which extended the unbeaten sequence to 14 matches and took them to 89 points, a tally good enough to win the Championship in three of the last five seasons.

The hurt will be deeper, and linger longer, wondering what might have been if Dale Stephens had been on the pitch until the final whistle.

Goals change games, so do big calls by referees.

They do not come much bigger than the £170 million U-turn by Mike Dean in showing Stephens a red card four minutes after he headed Albion level.

That is how much, at the very least, Boro will earn from pipping Albion to the Premier League, where they will come across Dean with far greater regularity next season.

He was parachuted in, with so much at stake, for the promotion decider. And yet, when it came to the crunch moment of a predictably fraught contest, he showed weakness rather than strength.

The man-in-the-middle when Boro were tamely defeated by Norwich in the final of the play-offs last season saw the challenge by Stephens on Ramirez as a booking.

The yellow card in Dean's hand was swiped out of his possession by Ramirez, then the ref showed a red instead, leaving Albion with too much to do just as the mood had turned in their favour.

As Chris Hughton, customarily calm and collected afterwards, remarked somewhat ruefully: "At 1-1 we know we still need to win but at that stage we have got momentum and we were certainly as likely to score as them.

"There's no doubt it changed, particularly with what we have in midfield with Dale and Beram (Kayal). They are big players for us.

"They (the officials) work very much as a team. You just want right decisions. On most occasions they get things right but for me on this one they got it wrong."

Why did Dean change his mind? The evidence is confusing. He told the Albion players it was because of the injury to Ramirez but informed Hughton after the match it was on the advice of his assistants, who were both far further away.

Ramirez, after pulling down his sock, had drawn Dean's attention to the gaping wound he suffered once he had knocked the yellow card out of his hand by pointing to his leg.

The Uruguayan made the most of the incident but he was badly hurt and had to be stretchered off.

The fault is Dean's for lacking the courage to stick with what he saw, when instinct told him the tackle was worthy of a caution, not dismissal. Replays emphasised Stephens won the ball before unintentionally catching Ramirez with his studs.

Albion have little option other than to appeal - but little hope of being successful.

Stephens is such a key player to be without for the duration of the play-offs, particularly with the suspended Lewis Dunk missing from the first leg as well against Sheffield Wednesday on Friday evening.

Decisions by referees are rarely overturned unless the injustice is blatant. The dangerous element of the damage inflicted on Ramirez by Stephens' studs will, in all probability, sway the panel away from a reversal.

The danger for Hughton is being robbed of 20 of the 68 goals scored by his current squad - ten from Stephens and Dunk, another ten from the injured Bobby Zamora and Solly March.

Only Tomer Hemed is above Stephens in the chart now after his neatly angled header from beyond the far post from Anthony Knockaert's free-kick put Albion on terms early in the second half.

They had been sent back out early by Hughton, indicative perhaps of a poor first half performance.

The only blessing at the halfway point was that Boro were only 1-0 up. Albion started well enough but were jolted once a Ramirez free-kick was knocked back across the face of goal by David Nugent for Boro's other Uruguayan, Cristhian Stuani, to tap in.

That was sufficient in itself to vindicate a couple of big calls by Middlesbrough boss Aitor Karanka in promoting Stuani and Nugent at the expense of Stewart Downing and Jordan Rhodes.

Nugent's extra pace may have been linked to Gordon Greer making his first club appearance since January in place of Dunk.

The veteran skipper did pretty well in the circumstances, although Connor Goldson seemed unsettled by not having his recently regular partner alongside.

After coming to the rescue by diverting a goalbound volley from Stuani, uncharacteristic uncertainty from Goldson was almost punished when Ramirez lobbed onto the roof of the net and when yellow, not red, worked in Albion's favour, Albert Adomah picking out the wrong coloured shirt.

David Stockdale kept hope alive in the frenzied finale with a stunning stop from Adomah's close-range volley as the Seagulls showed considerable resolve with ten men but they will have to defend with more assurance on Friday in South Yorkshire than they did in the opening 45 minutes.

Sheffield Wednesday, like Boro, are frugal at home and will have a large, vociferous support behind them.

The goals also highlighted the pattern of Albion both conceding and scoring from set pieces. The aerial strengths of Dunk and Stephens will be missed in this respect.

It is going to be a challenging week for Hughton, his staff and his players but they have consistently demonstrated their powers of recovery from an assortment of setbacks, including results and injuries. Only a fool would dare to write them off.