North Village 1 Reggie Tucker made sure of Dandy Town's place in the FA Cup final with as impudent a piece of skill as you're likely to see within these shores at BAA Field last night.

With Town battling to hold on to Darron Simons' early effort as the game went into its final five minutes, the diminutive striker stepped up to take a free kick just outside the box on the left where Simons had been upended.

With the minimum of effort, he curled the ball over the wall and into Village goalkeeper Nyon Steede's top left hand corner. But the celebrations were shortlived as referee Lyndon Raynor had blown just an instant earlier for substitute Tarik Jennings' encroachment.

Jennings went into Raynor's notebook for the offence, but Tucker was unfazed.

Placing the ball back on the ground to retake the kick, he simply curled it over the other end of the wall and into Steede's bottom right hand corner to put Town into an unassailable 2-0 lead and spark wild scenes of jubilation.

Although Kevin Jennings caught Town keeper Antoine Lightbourne off balance with his fine opportunist strike to reduce the arrears in stoppage time, there was barely time for the ball to be replaced on the centre spot before Raynor signalled the end of proceedings.

Simons, the country's leading scorer, was on the mark again for Town last night, giving them the lead in the seventh minute with his 16th goal of the season and second in this competition. It was a scrappy affair but came seconds after he had missed one fine opportunity, his volley from a sixth-minute corner being spilled by Steede and ushered round the post.

This time a seemingly innocuous ball across the Village six yard box was missed by a whole host of players and when it finally fell to McLee Smith a melee ensued with Town attackers trying to force the ball over a line guarded by no fewer than three Village defenders.

Simons, several yards from the action, spotted his moment, and as the ball spewed from the scrum of grounded legs and arms, he raced in to bury it. The goal galvanised Town and for the first quarter of the match, Village could barely get a look in.

But Village, clearly missing the ability of the injured Elliott Jennings to hold the ball up, drew some inspiration from their first real attempt on goal in the 24th minute when namesake Kevin fired a free kick a yard too high.

Jennings was at the centre of most good things for an improving Village and he went close again a minute later, a disappointing shot coming at the end of a promising run across the 18-yard line. Then Sergio Goater pulled a shot wide when well placed on the right.

But Lightbourne was only seriously tested a minute before the break when Jennings climaxed a clever one-two with a blistering left foot shot which the goalkeeper did splendidly to beat away.

And despite Village's greater possession in the second half, Lightbourne was well protected by his defence until Jennings' free kick from 25 yards with 14 minutes to go again brought the best out of him.