North Village hero Neil (Diamond) Robinson played the pressure game and won after scoring the penalty that sent his side through to the Dudley Eve final.

Robinson, a second-half substitute, succeeded where some of those more accustomed to spot-kicks had failed.

After taking the lonely trek from the half-way line to the goal area, he sent the ball just inside the left-hand post and beyond the despairing dive of PHC's Jay-Lee Smith.

"There was a lot of pressure,'' he said. "I usually don't really take penalties. But for the team I had to keep my mind in focus and put the ball away.

"I picked my corner before I went up and just diverted it in.'' Robinson said he was looking forward to the final and didn't care who the opponents were.

"Whoever comes we will be willing to play them, we'll be ready and hopefully we'll be the champions,'' he said.

Red Devils' coach Scott Morton was happy his side were through but was disappointed with their first-half performance.

"I had to tell my players when they were in the changing rooms that if I had 10 substitutions I would have made them,'' he said.

"I asked them who wanted to play the most and in the second half they responded to my request.'' Despite being taken to spot-kicks twice in two games, Morton said his players never practiced penalties.

"Our training sessions could never simulate these kinds of situations, so we never practise penalties,'' he said.

"We did the same order that we did against Dandy Town, the only change was with Quincy (Paynter) who was off the field, so we replaced him with Vernon (Tankard).'' Continued on page 27 Village boss confident ahead of final Continued from page 25 Despite being taken to the wire, Morton felt sure he would be on the winning side.

"PHC are pretty predictable. So we know what we have to do,'' he said.

"You saw that in the second half. We moved the ball and played the way we know how to play and they really couldn't touch us -- too bad we couldn't convert some of those chances but at least we got into goalscoring opportunities.'' Asked who he would like to see in the final, Morton said: "I'm not bothered at all. I told my players to look forward to the day's rest, so that we can go over some things tactically and then get prepared for the final.'' Defeated coach Sammy Swan said he felt his side had put up a far better performance than in the recent 2-0 league defeat between the teams.

"It was one of those types of games. It was very difficult to play the best football, but I think both teams did pretty well bearing in mind the circumstances,'' he said.

"Last time North Village definitely outplayed us, so I thought we gave a better account of ourselves.

"We prepared the best we could before the game, but it just didn't work out in our favour. We go back to the drawing board and try and work on our game.'' Aljame Zuill: Colts scorer.