Wolves have tripped over so many minnows at this time of year it is surprising to find them still standing on their Carling Cup feet today.

But after 120 fairly turgid minutes of second round combat and then a penalty decider, they are ready for the third round after the 12th penalty of a shoot-out which provided the highest quality football of the night struck the outside of a post and bounced clear.

Fortunately for Wolves, it was Swindon’s captain Gordon Greer who took it but the fairly limp celebrations it triggered within Mick McCarthy’s players watching from the halfway line passed its own comment on how high this game was, and this competition is, on the Molineux agenda.

McCarthy has pretty much ticked all the boxes during his three years in charge but a decent cup run has so far eluded him.

Indeed, this particular competition has dealt him some minor discomfort as Chesterfield, Morecambe and Rotherham have enjoyed themselves hugely eliminating his side.

It’s been no big deal. Wolves have been shaping a bigger picture and few fans would disagree last night’s fixture for all Premier League clubs is the worst in football (save, perhaps, for any contest against Millwall).

A half empty ground, a vapid “atmosphere”, always a much-changed team and always a wound-up opposition from the lower divisions . . . it really is a game to be endured rather than enjoyed and never more so than last night.

The Wolves boss changed the entire XI who are still coming down from the high of Saturday’s very different experience at Manchester City to give vital game-time to the shadow squad.

For a couple of them, most obviously Kevin Doyle and George Elokobi, there is the clear potential of a starting appearance when the Premier League resumes against Hull City on Saturday.

For the rest, this was no more than a stepping stone to becoming “battle-hardened” which, McCarthy asserted, they most obviously are not.

“I warned them Swindon would be battle-hardened whereas we wouldn’t be,” he explained. “That’s where the sharpness, the passing quality, comes from. The only way to get that is to get these players into a game.”

In which case, McCarthy got all that he could really ask for from the exercise – and maybe a little extra on top. Not for the first time in the early-season jostle for the manager’s attention, 17-year-old Nathaniel Mendez-Laing found himself on the first-team stage, enjoying a competitive starting role for the first time.

And his long striding, pacey running at Swindon’s defence was one of the brightest features of the opening half for Wolves fans with keeper David Lucas denying the Birmingham boy what would have been a stunning debut goal, leaping wide to his right to keep out a left foot shot from 20 yards. This was quite the most encouraging blooding supporters have seen from one of their Academy kids since McCarthy was using the ‘young ‘uns’ liberally in his first season.

A spell out on loan to expand his experience beckons in due time after which his progress should be of further interest.

Doyle, who had also started brightly with a clever turn and cross-shot, continues to look a slick addition to the front-line while David Jones was the pick of midfield and Elokobi looked well within himself given a run out in the advanced, left midfield role.

But all around the rest of the team were the classic signals of players who, effectively, are locked in a permanent pre-season without the benefit of first-team football – mis-timed tackles and challenges, over-hit passes, scuffed shots.

There were further signs of the pace Ronald Zubar possesses and which will be of service to Wolves as the season progresses but he still bears the signs of rust.

Swindon will be a little aggrieved that neither of the two decent efforts on goal they shaped came to nothing.

Both came in the last 10 minutes before the break when Anthony McNamee cut inside Neill Collins and dipped a 20-yard shot over Marcus Hahnemann but on to his bar. And then Temitope Obadeyi, on loan from Bolton, surprised Matt Hill with a shift in pace which gave him the angle for a shot which bounced off Hahnemann’s right-hand post for Billy Paynter to convert the rebound. An offside flag muted Swindon’s celebrations.

Otherwise this was no night for Hahnemann, another debut maker, to establish any real claims because there simply wasn’t enough for him to do. But the keeper did make an impression with the quality of his distribution, from hand or foot.

With Andy Keogh, Matt Jarvis and David Edwards coming late into the game, Wolves’ most threatening moments came in the final phases with Keogh watching a lob over Lucas in the dying seconds of normal time just clearing the bar.

But a shoot-out it was, one staged in front of the South Bank for the first time since that fondly-remembered episode against Sheffield Wednesday all those years ago.

This one lacked the drama of that occasion but was superior in quality as, one by one, the players dispatched crisp, certain penalties beyond both goalkeepers.

Until that is, with Andrew Surman, Jones, Edwards, Keogh, Sam Vokes, and Collins having all scored for Wolves, Greer overcooked a shot to Hahnemann’s right and found the outside of his post.

By Martin Swain.