Australia’s Lucas Herrington made his first start for Hull City as the Premier League outfit followed up their surprise 2-0 opening match week victory against Manchester United by defeating Stoke City in a penalty shootout to advance to the third round of the EFL Cup.
After his much-publicised miss in the Socceroos’ Round of 32 loss to Egypt, Herrington was not asked to step up to the spot as Hull won the shootout 5-4 after the two sides were locked at 1-1 after 90 minutes on Wednesday morning.
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‘Can they do it on a cold, rainy night at Stoke?” is a line regularly thrown around in English football circles when assessing a player’s quality.
It was not cold or wet at the sparsely filled Britannia, and the Championship outfit are not at the heights of their Premier League days when that question was born, but Herrington made a positive impression as he was named player of the match by BBC Sport.
The teenager, who made his Premier League debut off the bench against United, played the full 90 minutes for the first time for his new club.
Hull manager Sergej Jakirovic deployed a back five against the Red Devils, like Socceroos boss Tony Popovic used at the World Cup, but switched to a back four and Herrington showed his versatility.
He was under the pump in the first half with Stoke having more of the ball and scoring the opener via Robert Bozenik outjumping Herrington’s teammate, and former United defender, Paddy McNair.
But Herrington held firm at the back and with the ball, he boasted a passing accuracy of 96 per cent in his own half and 90 per cent overall.
Hull’s first chance was started by Herrington at the back as the Tigers broke forward.
“Hard to believe he is still only 18 – composure on the ball beyond his years,” match caller Gary Taphouse said during the first half.
Hull’s Kieran Dowell scored the equaliser in the 45th minute and they never looked like conceding after half-time with Taphouse praising Herrington’s “maturity beyond his years” in the second half.
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Elsewhere, Leeds beat Nottingham Forest for the second time in four days to progress to the third round as Brentford smashed Birmingham for six on Tuesday.
Oliver Glasner suffered a late defeat in his first match in charge of Forest at the City Ground on Saturday and it was a similar story for the Austrian as the home side were punished for failing to take their chances.
Forest have reportedly agreed a club-record fee worth £50 million to sign out-of-favour Chelsea striker Liam Delap and the need for a cutting edge up front was in evidence in another 90 minutes without a goal.
Dan James rounded off his fine individual performance with the opening goal before James Justin sealed the tie in Leeds’ favour.
Fresh from putting big spending Tottenham to the sword 3-0 in an impressive start to the Premier League, Brentford ran riot against second-tier Birmingham in a 6-1 win.
Nathan Collins scored twice, while Callum Wilson, Aaron Hickey, Mikkel Damsgaard and Igor Thiago were also on target.
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All three newly-promoted sides to the Premier League progressed as Coventry let a two-goal lead slip before a late rally secured a 4-2 win at Plymouth for Frank Lampard’s men.
Ipswich were 3-1 winners over third-tier Leicester with Marcelino Nunez scoring twice.
Joshua Ajala also hit a double as West Ham came from behind for an impressive 4-1 success at Southampton.
League One Peterborough produced arguably the performance of the night to thrash Championship Watford 5-1 at Vicarage Road.
Norwich, Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Sheffield United, Lincoln, Millwall, Fleetwood, Wolves, Reading and Leyton Orient also booked their places in the last 32.