MANAGER John Coleman feels his Accrington Stanley side pulled off one of the shocks of the FA Cup first round after knocking out Notts County.

The Reds held the League One outfit to a 0-0 draw at Meadow Lane to bring them back to the Store First Stadium for Tuesday night's replay.

Stanley's preparation wasn't ideal as they put in a disappointing performance while losing 1-0 at Carlisle on Saturday, while the Magpies are the only Football League team yet to lose a league game on the road.

And although Notts took an early lead, Stanley fought back, with goals either side of half-time from Luke Joyce and Marcus Carver giving them a deserved 2-1 victory.

“The players were superb,” said Coleman. “They took everything on board about what we said about Saturday’s game.

“We analysed it quite a bit on Monday and tried to put it into practice in training. We knew it’d take a certain type of performance to win and we did it.

“If I was them I’d be aggrieved about the penalty being turned down at 1-0. If that goes in you can’t see us coming back.

“But we dug in. The energy and willingness the lads showed was testament to how much they wanted it.

“For me, it was one of the biggest shocks in the round - against a Notts County team that’s been flying.”

Stanley keeper Jack Rose appeared to bring down Garry Thompson after Notts had opened the scoring but the referee waved play on.

And the Reds took advantage to charge in front before seeing out the win relatively comfortably. They now have a home tie against Yeovil, another League One side, in the second round.

“The first 15 minutes there was nothing in it and they scored a good goal from their point of view,” Coleman added. “But after that we took the game to them and missed some good chances.

“The key was getting the equaliser right on half-time. It gave us a shot of adrenaline for the second half.

“We told the lads we had to make a bright start because we’ve had a couple of false dawns where we haven’t started so well in the second half, but we flew out of the traps and got another goal.”