A last minute equaliser by Jamie Hand denied Exeter the victory that the Conference side deserved at the KasStad last night. However they made amends in the penalty shoot-out, after the game finished 2-2 and with no further score in extra-time, during which United missed three of their four penalties. It had started off so well for Oxford, who took the lead after Tom Winters had been unselfishly set up by Tommy Mooney after just three minutes. But Exeter, fielding almost their reserve side, never allowed Oxford to capitalise on their good start, and young striker Jake Edwards took advantage of some characteristically slack defending to equalise just nine minutes later. The Grecians took the lead they undoubtedly deserved after 64 minutes, when Alexandre Jeannin powered home a 30-yard free kick given for a foul by David Woozley. With the game deep into stoppage time a Winters corner was headed against the post by Hand, the rebound hitting a defender and going in. The final whistle sounded just seconds after the restart. The game actually livened up during extra-time, but with no further goals the game went to penalties. After Basham scored United’s opening kick, Matt Robinson, Craig Davies and Hand all missed their shots, while Chris Tardif was able to save only City’s second strike for Exeter to make sure of their place in Saturday’s draw for the second round.

Graham Rix fielded a strong side, as promised, although there were a couple of changes from the team that beat Bury on Saturday. Lee Molyneaux replaced Leo Roget in central defence, and Winters started on the left wing, with Robbo at left back instead of Terry Parker. Midway through the second half a double substitution saw Paul Wanless come on for Rob Wolleaston and Chris Hackett replace Mooney. With only about seven minutes remaining Davies came on for Lee Bradbury.

The referee was A Woolmer, who showed a yellow card to Woozley for a stupid show of petulance, kicking the ball away for no apparent reason. The attendance was slightly better than anticipated, with 1,842 preferring the real thing to the Champions League rubbish on the box, 102 of them in the away end. We won’t be bothering to produce a match report for this meaningless bauble (and no, we wouldn’t have if we’d have won, either). At least United can now concentrate on the league (and the FA Cup too, of course, although Oxford have yet to win a cup game under Rix).