WREXHAM, who have won only one of 10 knockout matches since their FA Cup second round success at Scunthorpe in December 2005, needed extra time before clinching a place in the fourth round of the Setanta Shield last night.

It was Jefferson Louis, with his ninth goal of the season, who finally broke the resistance offered by Altrincham in a match short on quality, but Dragons boss Dean Saunders won’t worry too much about that.

It was Wrexham’s first cup win since they beat Port Vale on penalties in the opening round of last season’s Carling Cup, but they had to hang on desperately at the end after Colin Little and Warren Peyton both went very close to taking the tie into another shoot-out.

The Dragons, who conceded an early goal in their previous visit to Moss Lane back in August, found themselves on the back foot almost from the first whistle, but defended a corner soundly enough before breaking for Levi Mackin to bring the opening save of the game from Andy Ralph.

Wrexham, though, were not looking too comfortable in the face of the pressure to which they were subjected and one or two worrying mistakes at the back did not augur well.

Uncertainty between Neil Taylor and Mike Williams let Little in for a chance which he drove wide and when Williams was caught out for a second time, Robbie Lawton’s shot stung the hands of Gavin Ward.

On a more positive note, loan midfielder Angelos Tsiaklis showed signs of causing problems for the home side. Always keen to take the ball, he linked promisingly with Shaun Whalley on the right on several occasions, but the Robins were rarely troubled at the back.

They were fortunate though that Smith was not further advanced when Ralph came for a cross from Ritchie De Laet, only to let it slip through his hands, the ball bouncing harmlessly away at the deserted far post.

A back injury cut the game short for Robins defender Chris Lane in the 23rd minute and his replacement Greg Young squandered a decent chance within a couple of minutes, heading Matt Doughty’s corner wide.

Wrexham’s best reply came eight minutes before the break when Whalley exchanged passes with Louis and left Mark McGregor for dead as he raced into the penalty area where Luke Waterfall just managed to get his foot in to thwart the danger.

There was another opening for the visitors in added time when Louis broke from midway in the Altrincham half, but he failed to connect as well as he would have liked and Ralph was able to gather comfortably.

Silvio Spann replaced De Laet in a straight swap from the restart, but it was the burgeoning partnership between Marc Williams and Louis that produced dividends in the 48th minute. The Wales under-21 international won a tackle to play in his fellow striker and carried on to take the return pass before squeezing his shot past Ralph.

The lead, however, lasted just six minutes as Wrexham were caught out going forward and Alex Meechan cleverly lobbed the ball into an empty net after Ward had saved bravely at the feet of the counter-attacking Dale Johnson.

As the game became more stretched, the momentum remained with the home side and the Dragons struggled to keep the ball enough to give their back line any relief.

And they should have done better in a rare break when Mackin’s raking pass picked out Whalley in acres of space, only to lose out to former Wrexham ace McGregor.

Then in the first period of extra time Louis completely mis-kicked from 10 yards after the ball was laid on a plate for him by Marc Williams, but the big man more than made amends in the 112th minute when he slammed in Simon Brown’s cross from close range.