Notts County 2 Exeter City 1.

Tuesday 14 February 2012
Referee: Mark Brown

Att: 4741 with 200 City fans.

BBC Match Report –

Goals from Lee Hughes and Jeff Hughes gave Notts County victory over Exeter.

Exeter soon drew level though when Billy Jones' corner found Scot Bennett to head home from close range.

However, the hosts regained the lead through Jeff Hughes' penalty, after Troy Archibald-Henville's foul on Jon Harley in the box.

VIEW FROM THE DRESSING ROOM

Notts County manager Martin Allen said:

"It's always hard to play against Exeter because they play good football. They move the ball about the pitch. They never change their way of playing.

"After 15 minutes I think we could have been about four-nil up, with great efforts by Lee Hughes and a couple of other good chances.

"But it wasn't to be. In the second half it was a very gritty, determined, not good-to-look-at performance but three points in that style is pretty good."

Exteter City boss Paul Tisdale told BBC Radio Devon:

"I'm frustrated because we gave it a good go, especially in the second half. It is frustration born out two very, very soft goals.

"You can view it with some kind of critical view to see how you could have done things better but our goals against were particularly soft today.

"To say we gifted them the first is probably an understatement. That's what happens, it's a tough league.

"I couldn't have got a better response from my team in the second half and we played extremely well."