Scott Brown was delighted with his players after Fleetwood reached the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history, beating QPR 2-1.
The Cod Army came from behind to win, with Promise Omochere scoring the winner after Toto Nsiala had cancelled out Sam Field’s opener.
And Brown, a six-time Scottish Cup winner with Celtic, heaped praise on his players after they deservedly caused a cup upset against the Sky Bet Championship side.
He said: “I thought the lads were exceptional today, from start to finish.
“We had a desire to compete in every tackle, every aerial duel, on the floor, keeping the ball under pressure against what is a top side. They came here with a strong team and we gave as good as we got.
“You can see the lads cramping up and you can see what it means to them. It’s the first time in the club’s history that we’ve got through to the fourth round so we’ll be looking forward to the draw.
The Scot continued: “I think the momentum came from last week’s win, 3-0 at Shrewsbury, it was an exceptional performance with intensity and desire from the start.
“I couldn’t work with a better bunch of lads. We’ve made a little bit of history and it’d be lovely to get one of the big boys in the next round but we’ll just concentrate on the next game now.
“We’ve not been scoring goals here, the performances have been half-decent, so for us it’s important we can break teams down.
“The performance today, that’s the standard and the intensity we want week in, week out. We can’t have it one week and let it drop the next week, we want to hit those numbers every week.”
QPR boss Neil Critchley admitted the Sky Bet League One side were good value for their victory.
Although Critchley felt there was a handball for Omochere’s winner, he was in no mood to make excuses for his team’s dismal showing.
He said: “Where do I start with that? That just wasn’t good enough.
“So many aspects of our play were not good enough and the biggest disappointment is the mentality of the group. We’re inconsistent with our mentality and that’s why we get that type of performance.
“If we are going to accept mediocrity then that’s what we are going to get on a regular basis, so that has to change.
“It was evident before I came here and today confirmed what I suspected. We take a step forward then we take a step back and that is this group at this moment in time, so we have to do something about it and we have to do something quickly.
“It was a typical cup tie. Fair play to Fleetwood, I think they deserved to win. The first 10 minutes I didn’t like us then we got control of the game and scored but we conceded a shocking goal two or three minutes later.
“Fleetwood get in front and deservedly so and we’re left trying to raise our game and get back into it and we failed fail too many times, miserably.
“There was a handball but I’m not begrudging them their victory because they deserve to be in the next round.”
