Ronnie Moore was delighted that it was his Tranmere Rovers side progressing in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, but he couldn't hide his disappointment after Crewe controlled the majority of the first half.

All that was missing from Crewe's performance was a goal and just as everyone was preparing for penalties, a deflected effort from Rovers' sub Chris Shuker proved to be the difference between two evenly matched sides.

After his side's narrow 1-0 win, a pleased Moore told the press: "We were slow out of the blocks. They're a nice footballing side and if you let them run in the space we gave them in the first half then you're going to be under pressure. They had a great chance where their lad hit the outside of the post, but in the second half we got to grips with them and they were nowhere near the threat they were in the first half.

"The first half was unacceptable. It needed one or two sharp words in the dressing room and we got a good response. It would have been nice if we could have scored earlier as I wanted to put one or two lads on to have a look at things for Saturday.

"It was nice to see Shukes (Chris Shuker) come on and get the goal because we were just marking down the penalty takers and got to three and didn't know who to put on!

"We put the effort in in the second half and if it had been a boxing match we'd have just about shared it."