Gary Setchell believes in-form Ryan Fryatt will continue to keep proving his King's Lynn Town doubters wrong.

The defender has had his detractors since joining the Linnets as a talented teenager from Dereham Town in 2010. But the 22-year-old seems to have finally won them over with a stunning start to the season.

Fryatt was a revelation at right-back before injuries forced him to adopt a more customary centre-half role in recent weeks. That positional switch has done little to affect his growing importance with the older brother of first-team fringe player Liam still producing dominant displays at both ends of the pitch.

Setchell, who saw Fryatt 'senior' score during a 1-1 FA Trophy draw at Belper Town on Saturday, said: 'What can you say about him? He's playing probably the best he has during his career. He's had his critics as well at Lynn, which beggars belief really. People getting on his back when he was always going to be good enough. Neil (father and Lynn assistant) is obviously quite hard on him but so am I. Ryan's been dipped in and out of the team yet when he's been out of the team he's always worked harder to get back into the team as that's the mentality he's got.

'He's still a young player, he's still going to make mistakes and he's still going to have dips in form. While he's in this rich vein of form, he isn't making many mistakes, and he's putting in very powerful performances that's what you call progress from a young age at the football club.'

Both Fryatts could start tonight's first qualifying round replay – the victors of which will travel to high-flying Northern League Premier Division Nantwich Town in the next stage on Saturday November 14.

Matty Castellan returns and may join the brothers in the hosts' back four but the cup clash probably comes too soon for fellow defenders Jordan Yong and Sam Gaughran while Kern Miller and Conor Marshall are even less likely to overcome their own injury problems.

'Once Belper scored on Saturday it probably looked more likely that they'd be the team that would go on to get the winner,' Lynn's boss also told his club's official YouTube channel.

'We had to put our bodies in and heads in and defend very, very well to keep ourselves in the Trophy. If you ask any manager when you go away from home in a cup tie and you then get a replay and take them back home, you've obviously got a better chance of winning than you did away.'

The winners of this evening's match at The Walks, which could go all the way to penalties, will pocket £2,700 prize money.

Other action

Wroxham travel to Maldon & Tiptree, 13th, this evening for their latest Ryman League North fixture. Stewart Larter's travelling Yachtsmen sit 17th in the 24-team table but have played less games than most of the teams around them.