WREXHAM left it late - very late - on Saturday to maintain an unbeaten Racecourse run that stretches back to the opening month of the season.

The match was into the third of four minutes added on by referee Neil Swarbrick when substitute Robbie Foy swept on to a Jon Walters pass to fire the ball past Notts County goalkeeper Kevin Pilkington and cancel out Jake Sheridan's 83rd-minute goal for the visitors.

Few neutral observers could deny the equaliser was long overdue or that it was the least the Dragons deserved on an afternoon when they outplayed their opponents for long spells without really dominating proceedings.

But after having slammed four goals past Mansfield Town earlier in the week, they struggled to discover any composure in the penalty area and were also frustrated by some excellent defensive work from the visitors, who stuck doggedly to a strategy designed to earn them at least a share of the spoils.

County boss Gudjon Thodarson admitted as much afterwards, but he was less than impressed with the result and claimed that Foy's effort should have been ruled out.

"I felt very strongly it was offside but we can do nothing about it now," he said. "We are disappointed because we felt we had done enough.

"We were strong at the back, we did a lot of hard work in the mid-field and every member of the team played their part in the defensive shape and I was pleased with that."

The Magpies' game plan could have been torpedoed as early as the sixth minute when Walters thought he had opened the scoring after muscling Julian Baudet out of his path to convert a raking pass from Matt Crowell, but Swarbrick judged that the County defender had been illegally pushed off the ball.

It was the prelude to a superb display of attacking football from the home side but, as Racecourse boss Denis Smith ruefully observed, that counts for little if there is no end result.

"I thought we played tremendously well in the first half and it will be interesting to see on the video why the referee has disallowed Jon's early goal," he said.

"If we had gone ahead then it would have changed the whole complexion of the game.

"We deserved at least one goal in the first half and their tactics would then have had to be different.

"If they have come to get a result, you can't blame them for that. "They've treated us with respect, they tried to match us up and make it difficult but I don't think they managed that in the first half.

"We've been by far the better team but you've got to turn that into goals and that usually happens for us.

"We didn't want half time to come because it's then difficult to go out and start again and we didn't really get into the rhythm after the break, even though I still thought we were the better team."

With the exception of two quick breaks by County striker Mark Debolla, both of which required some concentration from goalkeeper Mike Ingham, the visitors spent the opening 45 minutes repelling repeated Wrexham thrusts.

Pilkington was happy to push away a 12th-minute shot from McEvilly for a corner - one of five won by the home side in a spell of concentrated pressure - wing-back Rob Ullathorne scrambled away Dave Bayliss' goalbound header and Walters was unfortunate to see his header striker Matt Friars, the connection taking all the sting out of the ball and giving the keeper an easy save.

More solid work, this time by Kevin Wilson, denied Walters once more after Darren Ferguson's split the defence with a fine pass but the County player just managed to deflect a fierce shot away from the goal.

A blatant foul by Liam Needham, who made no attempt to go for the ball when charging into Dennis Lawrence, was either missed or ignored by the officials and it left the big Trinidad international with an apparent rib injury that forced him out of the game a minute before the break.

But it seemed unlikely to have any bearing on the outcome as Wrexham continued where they had left off when the second period got under way.

McEvilly out-jumped Pilkington to meet an Alex Smith cross, but failed to get enough power on the ball and when Ferguson broke into the penalty box to take a Walters pass, his shot was deflected harmlessly wide.

Inevitably though, the catalogue of missed opportunities bred frustration for both the Dragons and their supporters in another pleasing crowd of just under 5,000.

And County, whose workrate had never faltered, began to win the second balls and pushed further up the pitch to stifle the likes of Ferguson and Mark Jones, who had another quiet afternoon.

The portents for a smash and grab raid by the visitors grew when White met Lewis McMahon's corner and arrowed a free header just above Ingham's crossbar in the final quarter.

And Wrexham fell behind in their next attack.

Former Norwich man Ullathorne's long throw was headed on by White and when the ball skidded off the top of McEvilly's head, substitute Sheridan looped the ball over and beyond a stranded keeper and into the far corner of the net.

Foy, who had been warming up for a number of minutes, made his bow with five minutes of the 90 to go and almost immediately was into his stride as he forced Pilkington into a full-length save.

But a first home league defeat since August 20 - at the hands of next-up opposition, Carlisle United - looked increasingly likely until with barely more than 60 seconds left, McEvilly and Walters contrived an opening and Foy took full advantage.

Even so, the Racecourse boss was not placated.

"Notts County should not have been in the game by the time they scored and then it would not have mattered," he said.

"It should have been well over by half time so then to be losing 1-0 was disappointing.

"I had been going to put Robbie on to try and win the game.

"Unfortunately he had to save it for us and he did that."

WREXHAM: Ingham: Bayliss, D Williams, Lawrence( M Williams 44); Roche, Crowell (Foy 85), Ferguson, Mark Jones, Smith (Bennett 72); McEvilly, Walters. Subs: Michael Jones, Warhurst.

NOTTS COUNTY: Pilkington; Baudet, Friars, Wilson; Pipe, Edwards, Needham, McMahon, Ullathorne; Debolla (White 64), Hurst (Sheridan 45). Subs: Palmer, Long, Marshall.

REFEREE: Neil Swarbrick

ATT: 4,726.