Duru working, running, reviving lost causes, refreshing certain moments in the game. Carlisle failing to take chances. If you were taking a reading of the overall display, those were two emblems of Saturday’s FA Cup tie.

But if results are your thing – and, given everything we’ve seen and indeed heard about the Blues’ campaign so far, they certainly should be – there was thankfully a little more. This was another day where United’s profligacy was on show, their inefficiency in front of goal repeatedly demonstrated. But also, vitally, it was a win.

Not a win that filled you with warm, snug thoughts that Carlisle are a reliable victory machine all of a sudden. But considering that much of the debate about many preceding games surrounded the merits of doing a great deal in matches other than winning them, let us not mark down an occasion when they got on the right side of the true stats.

Callum Whelan goes close in the first half (Image: Ben Holmes)

Carlisle 2, Tamworth 1. The rest of the detail can get in line. Thanks to a pair of goals by Regan Linney – one a little fortunate, one brutally dispatched – they are in Monday’s FA Cup first round draw. The journey there was scenic, as tends to be the case, but destination is the part that has flummoxed this United too often. So let us be glad that this was no such occasion.

Three wins from four games unbeaten since Woking: that is also the kind of arithmetic that will earn all concerned a cushion. Carlisle’s wider performance level is a thing of many aspects – some good, some less reassuring – and even now it does not feel like this season is going to be a straight line to success.

Chalking the wins up, when possible, therefore remains crucial. Let us hope days like Saturday, even if they are understated qualifying round games with three sides of the ground shut, can be habit-forming. One or two individuals could exit the game happily too, such as Kenton Richardson, whose 55-minute full debut in defence was assured, and Will Rafferty, whose first senior appearance towards the end was the best story within the bigger picture.

The sight of the teenage Rafferty cutting in from the right and clearly enjoying his cameo will have made some in the 2,708 feel their age: is it truly 50 years since his grandfather Billy first started scoring goals for Carlisle United? Yet Rafferty made you feel young, too: an academy kid with a strong footballing lineage who might, we hope, be at the outset of a promising career.

Kenton Richardson, on his first start, takes aim (Image: Ben Holmes)

Every good wish and encouragement should go with him. Before Carlisle sent him on, they had substantial business to take care of and a side featuring six changes went on to dominate the first half-hour before things grew more changeable.

This bright but chilly October day opened up in the seventh minute, after Richardson and Harvey Bunker had enjoyed early chances. Carlisle then skipped down the left, where Stephen Wearne was stationed, and he turned a Tom Anderson header on to Micah Obiero, who cut in and saw his shot strike Linney on its way past Rhys Lovett.

Linney’s touch left the Tamworth keeper wrongfooted, and he was off with his arm raised before anyone had the chance to debate his right to the goal. Your main frontman claiming such moments…just what you want to see.

Carlisle, from there, set all the terms, with Callum Whelan a bustling midfield runner, Obiero stretching Andy Peaks’ defence and a few half chances arriving: Teddy Jenks just wide, Lovett clawing a misdirected Hayden Carson interception away, Whelan close, the pattern set.

Linney diverts Micah Obiero's shot into the Tamworth net for the opener (Image: Ben Holmes)

So it seemed. Tamworth then tried to take advantage of a lull in United’s game with Tom McGlinchey almost seeing a shot deflect in off Anderson, and TJ Bramble hitting the post after Archie Mair saved a Teo Kurtaran wobbler.

Was this Carlisle about to give up another advantage cheaply? Thankfully not. Before half-time they scored again, as Duru burrowed down the right and Richardson’s searching cross was headed clear by a defender – the ball dropping in slo-mo towards Linney, who took the direct route to goal with a superb, battering volley.

The anxiety instead came later. Tamworth got in for their goal just three minutes into the second half when McGlinchey’s cross found Riccardo Calder the wrong side of Duru to head home. Bleak thoughts of a Tuesday trip to the Lamb Ground were, out of nowhere, stalking Carlisle minds. And because United could not then fully put Tamworth out of reach, they remained there for too long.

Micah Obiero chips the keeper but sees his effort cleared off the line (Image: Ben Holmes)

Chances? That wasn’t the problem. Moments after Calder’s goal, Obiero’s dinked finish was cleared off the line by Tamworth’s Tom Handley. United switched Wearne and Linney from left and centre respectively, then back again. Whelan curled a shot goalbound, where Handley was again. Amid more semi-opportunities, Obiero spun and finished…and there was a visiting player once more.

Those fond of xG will have been swooning at the nature of such chances. Yet Tamworth remained resolutely in the game, and Kieren Donnelly very nearly levelled when he got inside Brad Nicholson and hit the post.

Carlisle were never in their shells, as such, when Tamworth kept pestering their territory, even though they could have done with a calming head in the centre at times. Attempts to kill it continued, yet Linney had a shot…you guessed it, cleared off the line, then sub David Ajiboye and Obiero failed to shut things down in added time.

Teenage debutant Will Rafferty takes on the Tamworth defence (Image: Ben Holmes)

Rafferty, with bright movement and a shot late on, joined the chase and there was even some relief when the young man attacked boldly, rather than opted for caution. Carlisle’s lead was duly protected from the front, rather than contained closer to home. Good marks for that – and for a result they earned, even if it was seldom a clear-cut thing.