Battling Hucknall Town make League Cup exit at Sherwood Colliery

But boss Andy Ingle was pleased with much of what he saw from his side and will now hope to see them get back to winning ways on Saturday at home to league bottom side Grantham Town.

Yellows fought bravely against higher league opposition in Sherwood, but ultimately were undone by a well-drilled and disciplined side.

However, Ingle said: “It was good to watch how we could cope with certain things, though not others. But in the main we definitely played better than we'd done the previous Saturday.

“The level and the work rate of the opposition was far superior to ours, but we did cope with it for large parts of the game. The lads did what we asked for.

“It's just a shame we couldn't finish a couple of opportunities we had.

“If we had scored the chance we had early to make it 1-1 we might have made Sherwood think a bit. But it didn't happen. The second one ended up an own goal while the third was just positional errors as we tried to force the game.”

Will Norcross smacked the Hucknall bar from range early on, but the ball was in the net a few seconds later as the resultant corner was nodded around before being thumped home on the volley by Sherwood captain Jobe Shaw.

After Sherwood again hit the bar, Hucknall should have drawn level through Kieran Knight, who raced onto a Lamb through ball and forced Sheppard into a firm save, but blazed the rebound over the bar with the goal gaping.

With seconds to go in the half, the lead was doubled when Louis Tomlinson turned a cross into his own net in an attempt to clear his lines.

After the break, Kinnerley made a save, but Rose was on hand to slide the ball home on the follow-up.

On Saturday's home clash with Grantham, Ingle said: “They are bottom but I have said before there are no easy games in this league.

“I went to watch Grantham play Radford over the Bank Holiday and they made it awkward for Radford, who are on a winning streak. I have a few ideas what we can do. It’s just about finishing at the minute as we are creating the chances.”