David Artell believes that his young players will only have benefitted from the experience of facing Blackburn Rovers away at Ewood Park.

The Crewe Alexandra boss admitted after the game that his players found it extremely difficult to cope with Rovers’ movement and clinical finishing in the opening 20 minutes of the game, but he was delighted with the character they showed to obtain a replay.

Crewe were 3-0 down and heading out of the FA Cup with a whimper before a penalty and a red card altered the complexion of the game.

Two goals from Chris Porter and another from the former Blackburn Rovers man Eddie Nolan sealed a replay at Gresty Road next Tuesday.

David told crewealex.net: “Every game helps with their development and I’m sure the younger ones would have learned a lot from facing the Danny Graham’s of this world.

“It was a real baptism of fire for some of them and with the FA Cup being a knockout competition those first 20 minutes would have been mentally challenging as well.

“They came through it and although Blackburn lost their discipline to allow us to get back into the game, they took it. On another day we would have gone on and won the game but we will go through what we did well and what we didn’t do well and learn from the experience.”