Conditions at Blaise Park were certainly not made for a passing game of football but all credit to the St Blazey ground staff for getting the game played. Rangers were down to the bare bones with four of their first team squad missing and Isaac Reed having to turn out despite struggling with a knee problem which saw him limp off early in the second period. Simon Hill and Dan Baily were out injured and Marcus Fanson and Frazer Clark were both unavailable. Despite this we dominated the early exchanges but after 20 minutes our makeshift back line was breached and despite desperate attempts by Beechy and Brad Riggs, Tornado Bello’s shot evaded them both and trickled over the line. We were soon on level terms though. After a slick interchange of passes between Brad and James Ansell the ball was worked out to Ash Donahue who rifled home from 10 yards to level the scores and that si how the sore remained at half time.
The second half was only ten miutes old when Tom Beddow was very harshly adjudged to have fouled Travis Skirton in the penalty area. Dan Law almost kept out the resultant spot kick but Josh Sims shot had just too much power as the ball crept in the bottom corner. Almost from the kick off we were back on level terms again when Brad Riggs’s free kick was met at the near post by skipper Lloyd Beech. There were further chances for both teams and Rangers were lucky to survive a close range effort from Bello which came back off the crossbar but then the home team were indebted to keeper Dave Painter who saved well from Ollie Aplin in the dying minutes.
This was not the performance of a team languishing at the bottom of the table and it was clear to see that St Blazey have been working hard to strengthen their squad over the past couple of weeks and it looks to be paying dividends so Rangers can look back on the game, when you consider the players we were missing and the difficulties the pitch presented, as a point gained rather than two points lost.
Comments are closed.