King's Lynn Town 1 Cheshunt 0

Adam Lakeland wore the face of a relieved man as King’s Lynn Town scraped into the third qualifying round of the FA Cup.

Lacklustre was one of the manager’s descriptions of his team’s performance – it would be accurate to say that more emotive language would have been used in the home dressing room at half-time as he tried to stir his players out of first gear and something resembling a National League North side facing one from a level below.

The paint-stripping exercise worked to a degree – Lynn were better after the break, having ceded authority to the visitors after a bright opening. But it took something special from midfielder Tommy Hughes to settle the issue, his lofted shot from the left edge of the area flighted perfectly over the visiting keeper. It was, it has to be said, not reflective of the game.

Lynn started well, went into their shell, came out better for the second half and then, after going ahead, squandered opportunities to make the scoreline lopsided.

Lakeland was gracious in victory – he didn’t have much choice.

“Very tough side,” he said. “We should start by giving them a lot of credit because I thought they made life incredibly difficult for us, especially in that first half, the last 20 minutes or so, but we expected that. The FA Cup is very rarely straightforward in these early rounds. We were obviously the favourites, they’re the underdogs with nothing to lose. I thought they were excellent.

“But I think a lot of how they were able to grow and get on top in that first half was down to us. I thought we made some really poor decisions with the ball. We kept playing short, in front, in our own half and just inviting them to keep coming up the pitch, pressing us, intercepting passes and putting us under pressure and we only had ourselves to blame for that.

“I thought we started well. We had two or three really good little passages of play where we got in, the keeper’s made a couple of good saves. We were unlucky off a couple of our corners, but after that we went a little bit flat, played too much in front of them, didn't play with enough tempo and purpose and I felt we were fortunate to be level at half-time, and the players were made well aware of that.

“But I felt second half we came out, we did the basics of the game a lot better. We passed forwards quicker, we had more willing runners to go beyond them, we stretched them, we put the ball in the box more and quicker and we won more first balls, landed on more second balls and just through doing the basics I didn't think at any point in that second half they looked like scoring and we really, despite being underwhelming today, probably should have scored four, five, six goals. It was just down to things going the wrong side of the post, some poor finishing and good goalkeeping.

“But the most important thing today is that we've progressed.”

Lakeland was without striker Jonny Margetts, suspended midfielder Cody Johnson and defender Greg Taylor. Hughes came in for Johnson and had to play a deeper role but, as Lakeland, acknowledged, showed more of his undoubted skills when he was allowed to go forward.

“He's a good player,” said Lakeland. “He's got so much quality and ability. And to be fair to Tommy, obviously Cody was suspended today and we've played Tommy as the deepest midfield player and that's not his natural position, and I'm asking him to do a role there that is not natural to him. He showed that quality when he was able to get higher up the pitch and I think when we brought Sam (Walker) on and pushed Tommy a little bit higher, he had some better moments again.

“It was a good goal and getting that first goal, getting our noses in front, was going to be so important and I’m pleased for him to score.”

King’s Lynn Town: Jones, Ronan, McFadden, Wilson, Sass, McCammon (Whiteley 88), Hmami, Hughes, Barnes (Walker 71), Crane (Cybulski 90), Omotayo. Subs not used: Coulson, Boyes.

Goal: Hughes 68

Cheshunt: Edwards, Miles (Akolbire 82), Da Silva (Murphy 86), Orafu (Muyembe 88), Furlong, Sutton, Oti, Thomas, Wood (Wynter 74), Granville, Bisall (Vasilou 73). Subs not used: Braney, Jefcoate.

Att: 622