Thomas Frank has praised Brentford goalkeeper Ellery Balcombe for his debut as he made two penalty saves in a 3-0 shootout win.
The EFL Cup second finished with a 1-1 draw on the night resulting in a penalty shootout to decide who was in the hat for the next round.
It took until the 88th minute for the Bees to open the scoring against League Two opposition.
Mathias Jensen scored the goal that appeared to have won the tie for the away side.
Newport teenager, Kiban Rai, came off the bench and scored a header in the 96th minute.
This saw the game be decided by penalties where Balcombe came into his own.
Adam Lewis missed the hosts first penalty, before the Brentford man saved their next two.
Keane Lewis-Potter scored the winning penalty to confirm a cup win for Frank’s side.
What has Thomas Frank said about Ellery Balcombe?
It was his first senior appearance for the club he has came up through the ranks with.
This aspect made Frank happy: “He’s been at the club since he was eight years old and it’s a fantastic story for him to make a debut like this with his family watching in the stadium.”
For a player who has been at the club for 15 years it is a special story.
The goalkeeper has made seven loan spells away from the Bees with Bristol Rovers and Crawley Town being the most recent.
Despite all these loans, this was his first appearance for Brentford and it was a great performance.
His penalty heroics weren’t forgotten by his manager: “Our debut goalkeeper made fantastic saves in the shoot-out.”
It appears that he could be the cup goalkeeper for the club and play an important part.
Talking on this point Frank said: “We want to go far in the cup competitions, and you need to get the job done. We did that in the end.”
The Bees progress to face Arsenal in the next round, a tough test if they want to have that cup run.