Jamie Richardson

Northern Rangers have won the bragging rights and the first leg of the 2017 Challenge Cup as they accounted for Launceston City 2-1 at the NTCA on Saturday afternoon.

The wind sweeping through Kmart end of the ground to the clubroom end made for a game of two halves. City had the wind behind them in the first half and were on the front foot camping inside of Rangers defensive half for long periods of time. Rangers under former City head coach were however well up to the task of dealing with most of what City could throw at them, marking tightly and limiting space for City to attack into sometimes with all 11 men behind the ball.

City did have two glorious chances to take the lead the first being on the 28th minute mark when Campbell’s neat work on the right found the run of Williams inside the Rangers 18 yard box, Williams took a touch away from the Rangers goal and his opposition defender and shot fiercely at the near post, he had Connolly beat but couldn’t beat the post.

The second of City’s chances fell to Compagne. Williams again in the thick of it, his well taken free kick from the left into the six yard box found the head of Compagne, he rose high above his defender but headed straight at Connolly.

Rangers and City both lost experienced defenders late in the first half. First it was Tenzing Anderson from Rangers limping off before moments later City’s Shane Egan was joining him on the sidelines. The loss of Egan late in the first half could have been a telling factor in the way this game was heading in the second half.

Rangers entered the second half with the wind  at their backs and looked a side with the belief that they could win this game. They attacked City from the restart and had them under all sorts of pressure within their defensive half.

Rangers got their goal on the 64th minute when a loose ball just outside the 18 yard box was struck by Jones on his left foot and it beat Smith at his near post to send Rangers a goal to the good.

Ten minutes later and Rangers extended their lead when a Kyle Kelly free kick deep into City’s attacking third was well cleared at the front post, releasing Darrant to counter immediately. Darrant carried the ball all the way into City’s half and spotted the run of Pat Lanau-Atkinson who just got in behind his defender and made no mistake of stroking the ball beyond Smith to edge them closer to the win.

City brought it back to a one goal deficit when Williams floated a free kick to the back post to Turner who rose above Connolly and flicking it back into the goalmouth scramble. Bartlett was Johnny on the spot and managed to sneak a shot through all the bodies to give City a glimmer of home with 11 minutes to play.

For the next 5 minutes City pushed to get the equaliser and Rangers were a bit lost at how to see the game out. It was a short lived rally though as City began to look a tired and defeated side by the time Nick Lanau-Atkinson fired into the side netting and then Thannauser tried one from long range.

The game ended with a Slice of Tomato. Danny Jin jogged a good 6 metres to give O’Connor a little, completely unnecessary shove after the City man fouled Nick Lanau-Atkinson. That was to be Jin’s second Slice of Cheese for retaliation for the day. He received his first in the same fashion when Rangers won a free kick and Jin came in for some afters.

Former City boss, and now Rangers coach Lino Sciulli was certainly the happier of the two coaches and was glad to get that one out of the way.

“It was a good result, a lot of mixed emotions I didn’t know how to act at the end to tell you the truth but it was a good result.”

“The guys worked hard, they endured a lot in the first half against the wind but in the second half we came out and took it to City a bit and reaped some reward.”

Brookfield was left lamenting another performance that promised so much but produced so little.

“Things like hitting the post, missing lines and not putting the ball in the back of the net has cost us a game.

“Lack of communication is also the thing that let us down. They fought hard which was fine, but for us it was just one of those days.”