EARLSWOOD Town were dumped out of the Birmingham Vase in a 3-2 home defeat to AEI Rugby.
Earls started brightly, forcing the away keeper into a smart save, with a Daniel Stokes drive palmed past the post.
A fierce drive from Harry Street was then tipped over the bar as Earls applied early pressure.
However, the away side took the lead after Keilo Brown failed to clear and within five minutes it as 2-0 after a shot cruelly deflected off skipper Danny Janes and into the net.
Earls suffered a hammerblow soon after half time when a break away saw Rugby grab a third goal.
Danny Holliday and Daniel Jarrett were introduced immediately and spurred Earlswood on to a period of domination.
A Jarrett drive was only parried by the visiting keeper, leaving Stokes to prod home.
Five minutes later Holliday fired in from the edge of the box.
The last 20 minutes was one-way traffic, coupled with the Rugby keeper taking an age over every goal kick.
Despite six minutes of stoppage time, Earlswood failed to find the equaliser.
Boss Ade Luxton said: “It was a strange afternoon all round.
“Rugby arrived when we were warming up, they watched us warm up and to be honest I think we thought it might be a one-sided game.
“Again we gave away poor goals leaving ourselves a mountain to climb.
“In the second half we were better, completely dominating the game but ultimately fell short.
“Unfortunately we had a referee who failed to book the their keeper for blatantly wasting time from about ten minutes in.
“He explained afterwards that he added the time on but that’s not the point.
“He disrupted our tempo every time we were on top and he took so long on every goal kick it was embarrassing.”
