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Having been forced to play defender Lee Bullen in goal after David Lucas was injured, Wednesday had their backs to the wall as The Lions went for the jugular and after Bullen saved well from a David Livermore free-kick he seemingly palmed Tony Craig’s corner into the back of the net.
Referee Tanner then appeared to point to the centre spot, indicating a goal, but while the Millwall players ran to Craig to celebrate he awarded the visitors a free-kick for a foul on the keeper and let them restart the game.
With Craig still celebrating what he thought was a perfectly good goal, the Wednesday players charged towards Andy Marshall in the Millwall goal and made the home side pay as Frank Simek slotted home as The Lions scrambled to get back into position.
Assistant Manager Tony Burns was left fuming after the final whistle.
"You can't do that to a game at Championship level," said Burns. "To me it looked like he (Tanner) pointed to the centre-circle so everybody was celebrating. That surely can't happen in football, not like that.
"It can't be decided on a goal like that. I'm finding it hard to talk about it because in 40 years I haven't seen anything like it."
"I don't recall any real challenge on the keeper when he came for Tony Craig's corner,” added Lions captain Livermore after the game. "It was a fantastic cross and he just seemed to panic a bit and ended up putting it into his own net.
"As for the decision to allow them to take a quick free-kick, it might be within the laws of the game but it's not within the spirit of it.
"But we are gutted with ourselves, too, because we had a great opportunity and we didn't really test them."
Meanwhile Owls boss Paul Sturrock had some sympathy for this opponents after the game. "I think I would have been as aggrieved as Millwall," he said.