Two up too early for Town AFC as Rangers Reserves come back to win

5 March 2014; A general view of a football. UEFA Under 21 Championship Qualifier, Republic of Ireland v Montenegro, Tallaght Stadium, Tallaght, Co. Dublin. Picture credit: Piaras O Midheach / SPORTSFILE

With several senior players available, on paper Banbridge Town AFC looked quite strong. They started brightly and pressed Rangers into their own half and young reserve striker Declan Loy opened the scoring with 6 minutes on the clock.

After again some great pressing, Duncan Stoddard doubled the Town AFC lead.

However Town Afc started slowing things down and got caught in possession on a few occassions and this lead to Rangers winning a corner which on 41 minutes was not cleared by Town and the follow up shot was pulled wide by Dean Mallon.

On 44 minutes, Matty McKnight skipped past Matty McCartan and played a weighted through ball for Ryan Weir who found the back of the net thanks to a deflection off Shannon Drainey.

David Gray, who started well for Town had to be taken off and sent to hospital for an x-ray on a badly injured ankle.

The Gers were forced into making a double substitution before the half hour mark when Jason Adamson and Jordan McCracken picked up knocks and were replaced by Dean Mallen and Wayne McAllister.

They battled their way back into the game in the second period and drew level when Dean Mallen headed in after some good work by Gordon on the hour mark.

At the other end, Ryan Gourley was very hard working down the right flank and looked dangerous every time he got the ball. Indeed Rangers had to double up on him on each occassion trying to stop him.

He produced a bit of individual brilliance and whipped in a back post cross to the young Ryan Williamson who had his unchallenged shot pull wide of the mark.

On 71 minutes Bradley Hughes left the Town trailing in his wake with a composed finish to give the Gers the lead for the first time in the game.

In the dying minutes the three points were wrapped up by Dean Gordon who finished well to leave the scores at 4-2.

The Rangers defence was superb with centre halves Wayne Nelson and Kyle Sergeant having particularly good games and kept striker Ally Wilson at bay.

“AWe are going to pick ourselves up and try to improve and get some sort of consistency in our game for the 90 minutes,” said the Town AFC boss.

Banbridge Rangers Reserves will travel to Kilkeel on Saturday to renew acquaintances with Valley Rangers Reserves. The sides met five times last year with the Banbridge boys coming out on top on four occassions and will surely be another close contest when kicked off at 2.15pm.