Chris Williams, Elliot Slade, Liam Jones and Callum Lloyd all returned for Ruthin, but they were without joint top scorer Jordan MacCarter who was sitting out his first of a three match suspension. Ruthin gave a good account of themselves in the first half, and it was fairly even in possession, but with Holywell creating the better chances.

Holywell looked dangerous at set pieces and should have done better when having two opportunities to open the scoring with a couple of headers. At the other end Ruthin failed to test the Holywell number one Paul Turner, but defended well with Huw Price marshalling the back four.

The second half began with Holywell having more of the possession and creating more chances, twice hitting the post and a couple of times there was pinball in the Ruthin area, but Ruthin weathered the storm and kept Holywell at bay for the time being.

Ruthin started to move the ball around better and had their best chance of the game as Garmon Hafal flicked the ball into Jak Newell’s path, but he failed to find the target.

An hour in and Holywell broke the deadlock, Ruthin failed to clear their lines and a sliced clearance found its way to Holywell’s Connor Littler who’s header beat Rich Parry in the Ruthin goal.

Ruthin went looking for an equaliser and Mathew Davies, Daffydd Jones and Sam Jones were introduced. It was Sam Jones who nearly drew the scores level with his first touch as his volley just went over the crossbar.

In the final minutes Dan Porter was brought down in the Holywell box and the ref gave a penalty. With enormous pressure on him Porter took the penalty himself, only for Turner to brilliantly save, Porter followed up by controlling well before shooting over the bar with the goal at his mercy.

From the resulting goal kick the final whistle blew and Holywell deservedly went through to the next round, for Ruthin it was a case of what might have been after the late penalty miss, but gave a decent performance without a number of key players against an impressive Cymru Alliance side and will look to bounce straight back in League Cup action next week away at Overton.

Feathers Man of the Match- Huw Price