Rugby Town eased comfortably into the Third Qualifying Round of the FA Cup with Budweiser at lower league Blaby & Whetstone.

Town breezed through to the next round, equalling their best ever score in the competition in the process.

Five of Rugby’s goals came in the second half against a side who normally play two levels below them in the non-league pyramid.

Whilst the final outcome never really looked in doubt, Valley did initially struggle to break down their at times uncompromising hosts - who defended in numbers and rarely ventured into Rugby’s half.

Alex Gudger, Seb Lake-Gaskin and David Kolodynski all saw early chances comfortably taken by Ben Jackson, before Lake-Gaskin broke the deadlock on 19 minutes when he headed home from close range after Mason Rowley himself had headed a Sam Youngs’ corner back across the box.

Jackson then kept out a strike from the returning Lewis McBride shortly before the referee’s whistle brought an end to a first half that had become increasingly niggly towards its conclusion.

It was therefore no surprise when Blaby were reduced to ten men just after the restart, with Ross Lavin receiving a red card for flicking his head at McBride, after the Town man had caught him with a late tackle.

Lavin’s dismissal opened the floodgates, with Kolodynski’s persistence down the right hand channel giving him the opportunity to chip home for Valley’s second.

Lake-Gaskin made it three not long after, when he ran onto Kolodynski’s clever through ball before applying a clinical finish.

Roles were reversed later in the half, when Lake-Gaskin’s pace and vision enabled him to turn provider for his strike partner, with Kolodynski powerfully volleying the resulting pull-back past Jackson.

Other chances had gone begging for Town before that strike – most notably when Ellis Myles stabbed his effort straight at the keeper.

McBride and Lake-Gaskin then combined well to set-up Kolodynski, but he poked the ball into the side netting, before Myles’s cross picked out the unmarked Richard Blythe to allow the substitute to head powerfully into the top corner for Valley’s fifth.

With ten man Athletic now clearly tiring, opportunities came aplenty for Town.

Lake-Gaskin almost squeezed one in from a tight angle, McBride was denied by Jackson and Michael Williams flashed the ball across the face of the goal- just out of Kolodynski’s reach.

Blaby’s Chris Anastasi did have a trio of chances after his introduction as a second half substitute, but Cooper was more than equal to the first two, and the third drifted harmlessly wide.

McBride rounded off the scoring with a composed finish in the closing minutes, after Kolodynski’s flick had released him in the box.

Valley Line-up: Cooper; Myles, Kelly, Rowley, Gudger; McBride, Marsden (Williams), Spencer (Palmer), Youngs (Blythe); Lake-Gaskin, Kolodynski. Subs not used: Bishop. Booked: McBride.

Blaby line-up: Jackson, Mee, Hawker, Goodman, Lavin, Neat, Baines, Hill, Hirst, Preston, Barrett. Subs: Anastasi, Gohnaghan, Wilson, Blanchard, Towers, Maccamelon, Cooper.