A night of high drama at the Galpharm Stadium saw Carlisle United edge their way through to their second successive Wembley appearance in two seasons on Tuesday night as Huddersfield Town clawed back three of the four goal deficit to take the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy area final second leg right to the wire.

Goals from Gary Pilkington and Alan Lee (2) gave the massive travelling contingent a nervy closing ten minutes to the game and Carlisle manager Greg Abbott believes it’s the kind of end result that will bring just the boost his squad needs at the moment.

“I’ve reminded the players that it is a magnificent achievement for this club to get to Wembley and they should feel proud of themselves,” he said. “We have beaten one of the best sides at this level over two legs and we have earned ourselves a weekend that the club can really look forward to.

“What we have to do now is take all of those positive feelings into the tough league campaign that we now face, because that’s where our bread and butter lies. It will be no good going into a big game like that worrying about our league position, so we want to get back to doing things properly.”

And with the Wembley final still over six weeks away Abbott is comfortable that he will not have to worry about his players losing focus.

“If they start to look like they are thinking about Wembley then they will find themselves dropped from the side,” he explained. “We have to pick up points, we can’t rest on our laurels, so we need to concentrate and work hard. If we can get more consistency then we can still find ourselves with plenty to play for in the league as well.”