AFTER a nervous draw away to AFC Telford in the F.A Cup first it was time for Tranmere Rovers, where we haven’t had much luck in the past winning just once in 18 years.

With Lee Sawyer and Hal-Robson Kanu playing their last games for the club as their loan deals were due to expire they were obviously hoping to put in a performance to remember.

And the opening half hour of the game was probably the most frantic first 30 minutes of football I had seen.

With Southend conceding early on and then somehow replying through Alex Revell’s bizarre goal to say the least I personally thought the tempo of the game would slow down.

However, I was wrong and Tranmere once again took the lead through Bas Savage who produced his trademark moonwalk celebration.

The goals continued and I happy to see Kevin Betsy get his first goal in Southend United colours after Robson-Kanu’s long range effort cannoned off the post.

There was still to be controversy in the game with Francis Laurent being sent off for violent conduct which he could have no complaints about after a moment of stupidity and not long after Tranmere were also down to 10 men.

I think Adam Federici deserves a special mention after a string of fine saves to keep us in the game and he once again produced a man of the match performance and showed why he was called up to the Australia national squad for their upcoming game in Bahrain.

AFC Telford are at Roots Hall tonight and I expect us to win easily.

But the F.A Cup always produces some shock results and hopefully we are not going to be at the wrong end of one.

Our striking options are at the moment very limited with the sending off of Laurent and Lee Barnard and Dougie Freedman still not fully fit.

That gives the out of favour strikers their chance to prove they are worthy a first team place and could even hold a place down in the starting11 if they give a good performance.

A point away to Tranmere was a very good result after they made things very hard for us and we were lucky to come out with a draw.

Now we should be able to go on and get a result against AFC Telford and make our way through to the next round of the cup.

Up The Blues!

Rhys Ellingham