Felbabel’s strike proves decisive

Although the first half had a couple of noteworthy moments, the game burst into life after the interval.

Vale Rec established a two-goal lead with less than half-an-hour remaining when Zac Felbabel applied a sublime dinked finish to a neat interchange with Jacques Wilcox – the scorer of their first with a heavily deflected shot on 47min. – and it looked as though their passage through to the next round was to be relatively comfortable.

But as soon as Jon Loaring was tripped in the box to earn a penalty just moments later, the tension was ramped up several notches for the last 25min.

Loaring picked himself up to take the spot kick and Jordan Kelly made a smart save initially, but the rebound fell back into the goalmouth where it was met by both Loaring and a retreating Rec defender at the same time, who between them contrived to put the ball in the net.

As the minutes ticked by, there were chances at both ends with Nathan Legg having to claw away Zach Masterton-Pipet’s header which was destined for the top corner, while substitute Matt Maggs shot narrowly wide at the other end.

But the real drama came in injury time as Nick Trebert danced his way through several would-be tacklers inside the Rec penalty area and got in a good shot that Kelly did well to palm away before Ross Piriou, under pressure from an opponent, hit the bar with the follow up.

So Rec survived and are in the draw for the next round along with the Rovers second team who beat Manzur 2-1 across the road at Northfield.