Stephen Baxter hails his Crusaders side for their tactical awareness as wing wizard Paul Heatley told to 'wise up' when it comes to retirement talk

The Irish Cup holders set-up a second round Europa Conference League tie against familiar foes Rosenborg as Paul Heatley netted a second-half clincher to come out 3-2 winners on aggregate.

Despite Heatley recently turning 36-years-old, the winger proves he can still do it on the European stage and Baxter believes age is just a number when it comes to his talented speedster.

"He's been doing it for quite some time," he said.

"He keeps telling me he's going to retire but I keep telling him to wise up as he's still the quickest thing on two feet in the Irish League.

"On nights like this he will go home very proud of himself and his family will be very proud of him too because he's an exceptional talent and person.

"That's what we have in our dressing room, we have exceptional people who demand a high standard.

"We set a really high bar and we have to work really hard at it because we maybe don't have the pulling power of the likes of Larne, the Glens or the Blues financially, but we have got an inner spirit that is probably second to none."

Baxter admits tactical preparation for both games were carried out to the letter and praised his players for their contributions across the 180 minutes.

"Something we talked about straight after the game was the information we got from our first scouting mission when we sent two people out to watch," he added.

"We were also able to watch another four games of theirs to get a real feel of who they were.

"We were able to pick their starting XI and shape for the away leg and work a plan for ourselves.

"I think they thought they would just wipe us out in Finland and get a two or three goal lead, but it was a huge performance for us out there scoring two goals.

"But then people would have thought after the 2-2 out there it was going to be a cake walk for us here, but I knew the quality of this team and how good they would be.

"We worked out they would do something different tonight and they did.

"I knew they would match us up a bit more physically, then in the last 15 minutes they threw their centre half Ndiaye up top who's 6'8".

"Overall we worked this game out tactically.

"We weren't as good as them with regards to the levels, but yet what we did particularly well was work out how we could beat them.

"There is more than one way to skin a cat and we did it exceptionally well.

"Every player to a man tonight understood the job and were exceptional in how they carried that out."