There was a gulf of five division between the Sky Bet League One hosts and Northern Premier League Diamonds, but the visitors gave a superb account of themselves at the Pirelli Stadium.

Backed by a vociferous travelling army of 2,000 travelling supporters in a crowd of more tha 4,000, Diamonds simply never let their heads drop despite coming up against a high quality Brewers outfit.

With the game played under a blanket of fog, there was some controversy over the home side's first goal on 23 minutes, with Will Collar tapping in from close after Charlie Woods saved a stinging strike from Borges Rodrigues.

Firstly, Diamonds felt the ball went out of play in the build up, and they also felt Collar was offside, but the goal stood.

Burton went 2-0 up with a thumping strike from Rodrigues after Diamonds failed to deal with a cross into the box.

The start of the second half saw Rushden have their best spell of the game, but Burton always carried a threat and the match was over as a contest on 75 minutes when Woods let a long-range Charlie Webster strike slip through his hands.

The goalkeeper reacted quickly to retrieve the ball as it bounced behind him and looked to have done enough to stop the goal, but the assistant referee flagged that the ball had crossed the line.

Diamonds kept pushing for a goal, and were caught on the break in stoppage time as Zac Scutt drilled home a sweet strike from the right edge of the penalty area.

Talking to @AFCRD after the game, Sandy was asked for his thoughts on the day and said: "It is just immense pride, and this is about the players and fans, and all of those volunteers that have made this happen.

"I am very proud to be part of it, and when you think back to August 8 and playing Kimberley Miners away, who'd have thought we would be standing here at the Pirelli Stadium, giving absolutely everything in front of 2,000 away fans.

"It was just an incredible day."

On the game itself, the Diamonds boss added: "It was really difficult, and at half-time I felt we had worked so hard but we lacked the aggression they had.

"I told them to get tight to their man, go and make it difficult, and that's where you could see the flip in the second half.

"We came out and started really well and until the mistake, although they always looked dangerous, we were creating chances, we were getting corners, the ball was bouncing around, but nothing really dropped for us.

"It was always going to be difficult, and there are fine margins.

"I will have to see the first goal back, we have fans saying it was blatantly offside, we have the linesman saying he couldn't see because of the fog.

"But obviously Burton fully deserved their win, they were amazing and are an unbelievable team.

"I just wanted the lads to give a really good account of themselves and they did that to a man.

"They worked so hard for each other, hey created opportunities for themselves, although they were few and far between, but they kept getting forward.

"They kept running, running and running, getting in the box, and then in the 92nd-minute you have Billy Sharp on his left foot and you are just praying the ball sneaks in the bottom corner and we would have all been on the pitch then!"