Ryan Ledson was pleased with the character on show from Preston North End to overcome the blow of conceding a late equaliser to beat Hull City on penalties in the Carabao Cup second round.
After a 2-2 draw in 90 minutes at Deepdale, Alex Neil’s team were victorious in the resulting shootout with Ledson among the five takers in Lilywhite to dispatch their spot kick successfully, with Connor Ripley's stop to deny Tom Eaves the only miss from either side in a 5-4 win for the hosts.
North End’s No.18 said he always confident about the prospect of penalties, even after the late blow of Jarrod Bowen’s injury-time goal to force the tie to the shootout.
“I think to a man, everyone who took a penalty was confident; Rippers is always going to save a penalty for me, he’s a top ‘keeper, and I felt confident going into it,” the midfielder told iFollow PNE post-match.
“We had five good lads who can all take penalties and have got real good quality and we stuck them away.
“The likes of Brad Potts and Tom Bayliss and Joe Rafferty aren’t even taking the pens, so going down to number nine, they are all quality lads who can stick them away.
“I think we’ve got some good penalty takers, we’ve seen the likes of DJ and Gally, they’re obviously our specialist penalty takers and we do practise them in training sometimes.
“We have done them this week, a few of the lads after training, and it’s paid off, so we’re happy about that.”
Ledson did admit to being disappointed by PNE’s second half performance, after an impressive opening 45 minutes had seen them open up a two-goal advantage at one stage, but also focused on the importance of progressing to the next round of the competition.
“I thought we were good first half, very good,” he added. “We passed the ball really well and scored two good goals.
“Giving the penalty was a bit unfortunate and then going into the second half, I thought we didn’t do as well as we did in the first half.
“Obviously, we dropped a bit deep, didn’t pass the ball well enough and obviously they’ve got the goal late on. But we’ve shown character to win on penalties, so it’s a massive plus and we’re into the next round.”
The 22-year-old, from Merseyside, sprung no surprises when asked who he would like to face in the next round of the competition, with the Carabao Cup third round draw set to take place on Wednesday evening.
“I think Liverpool or Everton for me – any of them two away would be my dream one. But let’s hope we get someone at home and let’s get through and start a good cup run.”
Watch more from Ryan now on iFollow PNE.