Carshalton Athletic crashed out of the Ryman League Cup after a 3-1 home defeat to Whyteleafe.

The Robins discovered to their cost that going through the motions wasn’t enough to earn a passage through to the next round of the League Cup, particularly against opposition who were clearly fired up to upset their Premier League hosts.

The early pressure came from the Robins and a superb cross by Rob Watkins flashed across the face of the Whyteleafe goal with no-one on hand to get a touch.

Jon Munday headed a corner over the bar and Paul Honey drove his shot wide and it all looked straightforward until ‘Leafe took the lead on 13 minutes.

The Robins defence was pulled out of position and Sam Butler had the space and time on the left to chip the ball over Nick Hamann for a simple goal.

Carshalton were quickly back on the attack, but they were making hard work of their attempts to breach the Whyteleafe defence and their luck was clearly out when Jolly’s shot hit the bar as did the follow-up header from Faulconbridge.

The Robins suffered a further set-back when a poor pass by Munday resulted in what looked to be a serious ankle injury to David Graves as he came off the worse in a 50/50 challenge with Jason Goodchild.

The Whyteleafe midfielder was harshly booked, but Graves limped out of the game to be replaced by Karl Murray in a rearranged line-up.

The Robins substitute quickly made his presence felt when shortly before the interval a strong tackle saw the ball break to Richard Jolly who took the ball forward to beat Robert O’Hara with a confident finish.

Seconds later Faulconbridge had the ball in the net again with a shot from an acute angle, but the offside flag was already raised and the effort disallowed.

The second half really failed to get going for the Robins. Faulconbridge set up a half chance for Jolly who sent his shot wide, but the home team were lacking the fluency displayed in recent games and too often moves broke down against the hard-working Whyteleafe defence with goalkeeper O’Hara rarely troubled.

The visitors were back in front on the hour when a close range shot from a corner on the right was beaten out by Hamann but only as far as Steffan Ball who put his side back in front from close range.

Despite plenty of pressure Carshalton still struggled to create any clear-cut chances, the closest they came to an equaliser being a drive by Murray that passed wide of the upright.

With the visitors holding such a slender lead there remained the hope that Carshalton might snatch the goal needed to take the game into extra time, but any such hope was dashed five minutes from time when Butler’s break down the left ended with a shot from outside the area that seemed to slip through the attempted grasp of an embarrassed Hamann.

Leafe had no problem in seeing out time and fully deserved the chance to ruffle a few more feathers in the next round.

Robins team; Nick Hamann, David Graves (Karl Murray), Rob Watkins, Jon Munday, Joe Dolan, David Ray, Louis Bell (David Stevens), Paul Honey, Craig Faulconbridge, Richard Jolly, Rashid Kamara .

Subs not used: George Beaver, Luke Badiali.