Hi all I have a custom NewItem.aspx that I made by creating a new aspx from the exisiting one

I wanted to put a control in a row inside the XSL Template like this

<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlSectors" AutoPostBack="true" runat="server" __designer:bind="{ddwrt:DataBind('i',ddlSectors,'SelectedValue','TextChanged','ID',ddwrt:EscapeDelims(string(@ID)),'@Sector')}">
                    </asp:DropDownList>
                        <!--<SharePoint:FormField runat="server" id="ff7{$Pos}" ControlMode="New" FieldName="Sector" __designer:bind="{ddwrt:DataBind('i',concat('ff7',$Pos),'Value','ValueChanged','ID',ddwrt:EscapeDelims(string(@ID)),'@Sector')}"/>-->
                        <SharePoint:FieldDescription runat="server" id="ff7description{$Pos}" FieldName="Sector" ControlMode="New"/>

Now I want to reference ddlSectors from my code library but it always throws an object reference not set to an instatnce of an object.

I believe that this is becuase the control is inside the XSL template.

so is there any workaround for this ?

thanks