The Hatters were big favourites to progress, but although they led 2-0 at half time through goals from Emilio Lawrence and Jordan Clark, they made heavy weather of the second half as their opponents came close to scoring themselves, finishing with 17 shots in total and only managing two on target.

Speaking afterwards, Wilshere, who made seven changes for the contest, said: “We started well and got a really good goal.

“We then had a really good opportunity to take the game to them and if you give them time to rotate and play, then they’ve got some good players.

“They put it on the sides, they’ve got quick wingers which are difficult to defend against, they put numbers in the box.

“We did enough, had some nice spells, but again we defended our box really well with all the stuff they tried to do, put numbers in our box and shots from outside the box.

“We headed them away or we blocked them, so overall when we reflect on this period and the run we’ve been on, I think getting the job done was really important.”

Rovers’ management team member Yan Klukowski added: “I thought we were absolutely tremendous.

“To a man we stood up to what they had, we played some wonderful football.

“We had players today that looked like Football League footballers, Jayden Clake in particular was absolutely sensational, a man of the match performance in my eyes.

“Probably my only criticism of the group would be that ruthlessness in the final third, shot selection, or hitting the target a bit more. We’re disappointed we lost the game, but delighted with the level of performance.”