Eddie Howe has one person to thank as Newcastle save their improbable season

Even as he has made a string of saves, the Slovakian’s spell deputising for the injured Nick Pope has been a traumatic one. He has conceded 30 goals in 16 games. That number could have risen considerably at Ewood Park.

Instead, Dubravka capped a display of heroics over 120 minutes with twin stops in the penalty shootout, denying first Blackburn’s scorer Sammie Szmodics and then their captain Dom Hyam. When the defender’s spot kick was tipped on to the post, and Fabian Schar, Bruno Guimaraes, Elliot Anderson and Anthony Gordon had scored their own, to compensate for Harvey Barnes’s miss, Newcastle were FA Cup quarter-finalists.

They took the long route and did it the hard way in a match that finished some 70 minutes later than it might, first because kick-off was delayed, then because extra-time and penalties were required.

Newcastle’s display was scarcely the required reaction to their evisceration at Arsenal; they could have had few complaints if they were eliminated by a bottom-half Championships side. Yet penalties, which proved their undoing in the Carabao Cup, resulted in salvation. They live to fight another day and the choruses were either of Dubravka’s name or of Wembley.

Dubravkamissed the shellacking at Arsenal, ruled out by illness. Newcastle had added reasons to be glad he recovered as he passed a test of his reflexes and agility. Even Blackburn’s equaliser entailed an excellent stop: he did well to turn Dilan Markanday’s ferocious shot on to the bar. Szmodics latched on to the rebound to score his 24th goal of an extraordinary season.

Theirs was a duel that spanned the night: Dubravka made a fine first-half save from the Championship’s top scorer, a still better one in extra time. Perhaps his best stop came to claw Tyrhys Dolan’s angled shot past the post, but there were plenty to pick from.