TWO early goals proved pivotal as Warrington Rylands exited the Liverpool Senior Cup at the hands of a strong Tranmere Rovers side on Tuesday night.

The League Two side had several first-team regulars in their line-up at Gorsey Lane, with all bar two of their starting XI having featured in the EFL this season.

As such, they quickly asserted their dominance and were 2-0 up inside 14 minutes – Kristian Dennis converted a penalty before James Norris doubled the lead just three minutes later.

Blues’ task got even harder when Jordan Mustoe, who was making his second debut for the club having returned last week, was sent off in the early stages of the second half, but they managed to halve the deficit when Dan Cockerline looped in a header to score his first Rylands goal.

Ultimately though, the men from the Wirral saw out the victory to advance to the semi-finals.

However, Rylands boss Michael Clegg was delighted with his side’s response to a difficult opening to the game and believes progress has been made since Saturday’s shock Northern Premier League defeat to bottom side Bradford Park Avenue.

“Fair play to Tranmere – they’ve come with a really strong side tonight and had us two down after 15 minutes,” he said.

“They came at us like a house on fire – sometimes with teams like them in the cup, they would bring the kids but they were fully at it tonight.

“We gave away two cheap goals but we recovered so well after the first 20 minutes.

“It was a chance for us to give some lads minutes – we threw a team together and it took us 20 minutes to get going, which was probably a little too late.

“I’m really proud though as the weekend was disappointing, but everyone has seen tonight that we’re together as a group and that we’ll fight for every ball.

“Jordan (Mustoe) wanted to use tonight to get some minutes, but he’s made it a right old slog for the other 10 men after that.

“I’m not too happy one at all to be honest but in fairness, the 10 lads dug in and we looked decent.”

Rylands are back on home soil at the weekend for their third home game inside a week as they return to NPL Premier Division action against Matlock Town.

Rylands: Pilling, Swaby-Neavin, Brockbank, Butler, Mustoe, Neild, Kyffin, Hough, Cockerline (Touray), Pedro (Taylor), Adams (Baillie). Subs not used: Furman, Hurst