Rangers pulled off a shock in the St Luke’s Cup on Tuesday night when they beat Torquay United 3-2 on penalties after the game had finished goalless.
We could have taken the lead in the opening minutes but Brad Kelly just headed Ash Donahue’s cross past the post. The visitors were then in the ascendency and New Zealand international Rory Fallon was unlucky to see his superb strike come back off the inside of the post with Nathan beaten. It was mainly backs against the wall for our lads although Ash just failed to get on the end of a Bailo cross just before the break.
Rangers grew into the game in the second half and restricted their Conference opponents to long range efforts although Nathan had to be at his best to keep the scoresheet blank. Ash did see his long range effort come back off the crossbar on the hour but there was very little goal mouth action to talk about in the second period.
So it was on to penalties after 90 minutes. Bailo rattled the inside of the post with our first penalty and we all feared the worse but two saves from Nathan and a post restricted Torquay to just two successful spot kicks from their five. The players who kept their heads and delivered the goods for Rangers were Brad Riggs, James Ansell and Ash Donahue.
This was an excellent performance by our lads, they were well organised defensively and really competed in midfield closing down the opposition effectively and not giving them time and space to play and with Brad always a threat up front things are looking promising. That is now three clean sheets out of the last four games, let’s hope that we can make it four out of five against Cribbs on Saturday in the FA Vase.
Team: Whatley, Riggs, Beech, Newman(Hill 70mins), Orchard(Reed 45mins), Greening, Langabeer, Ansell, Donahue, Kelly(Fry 80 mins), Baily.
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