Apparently coasting to victory with a three goal interval lead, the Cumbrians suicidal tendencies came to the fore to allow Torquay a sniff of the improbable and test the endurance of their fans to the limit. By now we should have learnt that nothing ever comes easy for the Third Division’s perennial strugglers.

Following the six goal mauling at the hands of promoted Wrexham on Easter Monday Carlisle’s first half performance in this game was as unexpected and it was scintillating. Defensive excellence and enterprising attacking play with clinical efficiency in front of goal were duly delivered in abundance.

“I had a good chat with the players this week and they know what’s required to win games,” an elated Roddy Collins said after the game. “I thought it was an excellent first half performance. At three up people who don’t know the game can get carried away and think this is going to be easy but it was never going to be easy. When you concede one goal you tend to drop off a little bit but I still felt we were going to nick them on the counter. But we were on the rack for a while but we closed them down on the edge of the box and I feel overall that we did well against a very good footballing side.”

Torquay came close to opening the scoring on 5 minutes when Jason Fowler’s shot from the edge of the box flew wide of the post.

However Carlisle’s ever increasing dominance in midfield coupled with a more direct approach was beginning to bare fruit.

Arjan van Heusden had to go full length to keep out an effort from Lee Andrews before the Cumbrians took a deserved lead with 30 minutes gone.

Craig Russell set Richie Foran away down the right before dropping off his marker to take the resulting cross and shoot into the bottom corner.

Seven minutes later the lead was extended when Foran’s deft lay off put Brian Wake in space to volley a stunning shot into the top corner.

Tony Bedeau was then unlucky for the Gulls after clipping a shot over the diving Glennon only for Russell to get back to clear on the line.

But Carlisle’s effective counter attacking play brought a third goal on 45 minutes. The irrepressible Foran again got to the bye-line to pick out Mark Summerbell on the edge of the box and the former Middlesbrough midfielder pounced to stroke the ball into the bottom corner.

Carlisle were now coasting and immediately after the break another Summerbell goalbound effort was blocked for a corner by David Graham.

Foran then had a golden chance but put his free header over the bar from Russell’s corner with Lee Maddison next to capitalise, scraping the bar with a wicked effort from thirty yards.

But a double substitution by Leroy Rosenior introduced Kevin Wills and Matthew Hockley and the pattern of the game took a dramatic turn.

Hockley had a piledriver parried away by Glennon before the Gulls pulled a goal back on 70 minutes. Hockley found space on the right to find the head of Alex Russell, whose effort was helped over the line for an own goal by the despairing lunge of Peter Murphy.

Jo Kuffour then fired straight at Glennon after turning well but made no mistake on 77 minutes when he got on the end of Bedeau’s cross to side foot home.

The goal set up a tense finale but Carlisle hung on to win a valuable three points.