On loan goalkeeper Rhys Taylor was one of the main reasons behind our fantastic Carling Cup win over Derby County on Tuesday night - but the Welsh stopper modestly suggested that he was just doing his normal job. Taylor's handling at crosses was immaculate throughout the night and he made a number of fine saves to keep the Championship side at arms length.
Crewe went on to win the tie 1-0 thanks to Shaun Barker's own goal in first half stoppage time and that has now set-up an intriguing 2nd round draw with Ipswich Town at Gresty Road.
Taylor, who was watched by the Chelsea goalkeeping coach Mark Beeney, told us he felt confident that Crewe would get the result to bounce back from Saturday's opening day defeat to Hereford.
Rhys told us: "I felt we could get the win against Derby and the lads went into it confident because we thought they would let us a play some football. We have a talented group of players here and the commitment we showed against them was different class.
"If we can take that commitment and hard work into the league games then I don't see us having any problems. It doesn't matter how you score them as long as they go in and the team wins.
"The manager knows that we have conceded too many goals over the last few years and has worked hard to do something about it. If Crewe can stop conceding goals then we should be fine because going forward we will always be a handful."
Taylor described Tuesday's Carling Cup encounter as the best he has ever been involved in as a young player, but joked that the last 10 minutes was hectic to say the least.
"Derby were throwing everything at us towards the end, ' says Rhys. "The last 10 minutes was chaos if I'm honest with the ball bouncing around our box. It seemed the ball was in our box for the entire 10 minutes but the lads put their bodies on the line to keep it out and we deserved the win.
"Now we have take that level of performance into the league starting with Cheltenham on Saturday."
