Last men standing

Following last night's JPT fixtures, only Swindon remain in the competition from the sides on my 'patch'.

Oxford lost by one goal to Southend, but lost two players to red cards in the process (the Shrimpers also had a player dismissed). And while neither striker Tom Craddock - sent off for fighting - or keeper Wayne Brown (handling outside of his area) are part of Chris Wilder's starting eleven, the Oxford boss will see their loss for the next few games as the biggest negative of the night.

Wilder will have eyes on promotion and so, while I'm sure that no-one at the Kassam will have been happy about losing last night, he'll be able to concentrate his efforts on the league and have a little fun in the FA Cup.

Cheltenham also went down at home - by two goals to Barnet. Mark Yates called the performance "hopeless", but blamed himself for making too many changes. Mind you, just like Wilder, I suspect that Yates will be happy to focus on the league. His first team are going well in the league and playing good football, but they haven't got a lot of money to throw about at Whaddon Road and so, just like Oxford, the focus needs to be the bread and butter stuff. A play-off final at Wembley  is likely to generate more interest among the green welly brigade in the Cotswolds than the final of the JPT anyway.

Paolo di Canio's troops continued their march towards JPT glory by seeing off the threat of AFC Wimbledon. They eventually got through to the next round by winning 3-1 on pens. The score was 1-1 after 90 minutes, Oliver Risser scoring for the Robins with a long range effort.

Keeper Phil Smith was the Town hero of the evening saving three of the Womble penalties.