Noble struck from 30 yards in stoppage time to spark joyous scenes on the City bench which a few minutes earlier had been involved in some heated exchanges with their opponents.

"I think you could see from their celebrations that they were already at Wembley. I didn't think much of their celebrations to be honest," said Eagles boss Warnock.

"There was no need to go off like they did. They are 2-1 up but I think celebrations should be kept until you are through because football has a habit of getting you back."

City captain Louis Carey had opened the scoring in the 54th minute when he finished off a training-ground free-kick involving Noble and Nick Carle.

But Palace grabbed a lifeline three minutes from time when Carey was adjudged to have brought down makeshift forward Jose Fonte, and Ben Watson stepped up to slot home the equaliser.

Warnock was also fuming with some of City's strong-arm tactics, not least a tackle on Danny Butterfield by Marvin Elliott which saw the midfielder escape with only a booking.

"That was a straight red," he added.

"We should have been playing 10 men after that. You could see by the look on Elliott's face he thought his season was over. You get booked for throwing the ball away!"

The fun and games in the dug-outs even stretched to Shaun Derry giving City boss Gary Johnson a soaking as tempers threatened to boil over in the high-stakes encounter.

"He thought I looked a bit hot and he was trying to cool me down - it was quite a nice shower," said Johnson.

"I just said to him 'see you on Tuesday' and we shook hands."

Johnson tried to calm his players down at the final whistle, admitting he did not want them over-celebrating with the fans.

"I told the lads not to get carried away, it's only half-time and there's only a goal in it," he said.

"It was a good performance but I did not want it to look like we were over-celebrating so I nipped that in the bud."

Clearly not quickly enough for Warnock's liking, however, setting up a blockbusting return leg at Ashton Gate on Tuesday night.

To City's credit, their goals would have graced the Barclays Premier League with Johnson toasting Noble's thunderbolt - and a weasel for Carey's slick opener.

"We've got names for our set-pieces and we call that one the weasel," he added.

"Michael McIndoe just shouted 'weasel' and everyone got into their positions. But I can't see it working again on Tuesday, I think Neil will have it worked out.

"Noble is a big-game player and he scored a fantastic goal. He has that ability and he's shown that during the second half of the season.

"There is no bigger game than today, he bought a ticket and won the lottery with that one."