Coventry Sphinx manager Luke Hopkins admitted to being very proud after his side beat Lye Town 2-1 in an FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round replay on Monday Night.
Hopkins told the Sphinx website: "It was a great result and a benchmark has been set for the season.
"I can see why Lye finished top six last season as they don’t stop, even when we had large periods of the game on top they kept going and made it very hard for us.
"There's no doubt they are a physical team and that will win them points alone, but I felt we played the better football and deserved the win, we were in the driving seat Saturday at 2-1 and controlling the game, but a defensive mistake killed us again.
"Last night, we cut them out and carried out a game plan which saw us win ableit the hard way in extra time, but it was the quality we have that came through and won us the game.
"I'm always in two minds with the amount of praise I publicly give some of the players as you want them there week in week out doing their job and not attracting attention from clubs higher up and that’s why we are always been careful with the younger players etc., but every single man last night was brilliant and deserved to be in the next round. I could name all starting eleven the three of the bench, Batesy, Avon and Doddsy as they were just as important as they helped see out what we had. But picking an MOM is a very tough one, Carlo' had couple of good saves when needed and constantly switched on, the back four were brilliant, Jacko slotted in, like he hadn't just had a week in Ibiza! Midfield Four outstanding and front two best I've seen from them so far, plus the way we dealt with being down to 10 men was tremendous.
The work ethic and the will to win was the important part. Jacko picked up two yellows but to be honest I wasn't disappointed with him at all, that’s his game and he puts in big tackles and law of averages make 10 to 12 tackles you will foul in one or two and when they are big ones you do pick up yellows. I don’t think the ref really helped himself but that's my opinion and hopefully an assessor was there watching who will help.
"The first goal was brilliant build up play and finished by Rich Blythe which certainly capped off a top draw performance from him and his middle partner Banko who must run on Duracell batteries.
"Second goal was a pure piece of ability and class, that we are coming to expect from Luke Downes, so the biggest and most impressive part of play from him was his work rate and off the ball attitude, I think some of Lewis McBride setting the pace and the standard of work rate is helping.
"We meet Rugby Town in the next round and its openly known that we have quite a few people with the team top to bottom who have been there, played there, managed there very recently so something might be made of it in the coming weeks.
But I think it only helps because it is a top class set up and facility which might come into factor of players' minds but we have lads who have played 100's of games there. Hopefully we can put together a little run that’s 3 unbeaten now and hopefully counting."