Swansea City won through to the third round of the FA Cup but they were made to work hard by a spirited Stevenage side who battled throughout.
Kevin Nugent opened the scoring for the home side in the 24th minute when he was first to react after an Andy Robinson shot had rebounded off the crossbar.
Five minutes later they could have doubled their lead when Lee Trundle brushed past a couple of challenges before drifting his shot wide of the far post.
Stevenage boss Graham Westley fired his side up during the interval and within three minutes of the restart they had equalised through leading scorer Anthony Elding.
Stevenage skipper Steve Watson sent over a pinpoint cross from the right and the unmarked Elding powered his header into the net.
Within 90 seconds the Swans had regained the lead when Trundle worked his way across the penalty area before firing a crisp shot wide of the diving keeper.
Stevenage threw everything into attack and had an Elding shot disallowed for offside and another goal-bound drive hacked clear from the goal-line but the Swans held on for a hard-earned victory.
"I'm very proud of my side and they put in a good 90 minutes and I thought we were unlucky not to have at least forced a replay," said Westley.
"I'm sure that when Elding got the ball into the net late on he was not offside and we still had chances after that to have earned at least a replay.
"Now we can concentrate on continuing on our League improvement and moving up the Conference table into the promotion race." Swansea manager Brian Flynn had refused to shake hands with Westley at the end of the match amid claims of an unprofessional attitude.
It appeared that Westley had taken offence when Flynn described the second round pairing with Stevenage as being Swansea's reward for beating a Division Two side.
"I felt that Stevenage's attitude was wrong before the match and I am glad that we have answered it on the field," said Flynn.
"It is a nice feeling to be in the next round as I felt we controlled the game throughout.
"We knew what to expect from them but were more than a match despite them throwing everything at us in the closing stages when they played with five men up front.
"All in all it was a good win and we now have something to look forward to but we could have finished it off far sooner than we did."