Matlock Town boss delighted with cup win ahead of league leaders' visit

​Three second-half goals proved the difference between the sides, two from new signing and Anthony Dwyer and a 20th of the season for Jonathan Margetts.

And after a first-half that ended goalless despite Matlock having the better of things, Carruthers was pleased to see the screw turned in the second period.

He said: “The only objective was to come here and win and it’s not an easy place to come.

"We were professional. We created chances in the first-half but didn’t start well after the enforced break – but the main thing is that the guy who was taken ill is OK as that’s far more important than football.

"We said at half-time we needed to be better and we got the job done. It wasn’t pretty at times but we did enough and it was another clean sheet and there were loads of positives.”

Matlock gave a debut to Nathan Whitehead in midfield, who re-signed for the club from Long Eaton last week, with Carruthers keen to use players of that kind to help keep more clean sheets

He said: “We needed that bit of experience and we’ve seen similar with Adam Yates coming in. People are saying the teams we’ve played haven’t been great but you can only beat what’s put in front of you – when we came in last year we had lots of clean sheets and solid defensive displays and we’ve got to get back to that.

"We’ve got goals in our locker too and it was great for Anthony Dwyer to get two and take a bit of pressure off of Margs.”

Matlock, who will travel to Curzon Ashton of the National League North in the second round on November 18, now prepare to welcome league leaders Radcliffe to the Proctor Cars Stadium on Saturday.

Carruthers said: “The objective is to beat them – why can’t we?

"The message to the players is to go out there and be the second team to beat them all season.

"They’re flying and sometimes it’s a free hit against teams like that and we know we’re often good at home so why can’t we beat them?”