IC PlessPix

Mark Wakefield 

The Kingborough Lions and Northern Rangers earned their first point of the season after drawing 1-1 at Lightwood Park this afternoon. In a game that never reached any great heights, a goal a piece from the penalty spot for either side resulted in a draw. The Lions led all the stats but their struggles to score in open play continued as they stuttered to a draw despite being on top. Shane Cartwright was the standout player in the game, whilst Chris Downes played well in his first game in a further advanced position on the field. For the Rangers, their best was Patrick Lanau-Atkinson.

As early as the first minute, the Lions should have taken the lead. Cartwright had burst down the right channel before hooking across a ball that had just slightly too much on it for Downes to poke home at the back post.

In the 22nd minute, a shot from range hit the arm of a Lions defender who had turned to his side for the shot. Despite his arm being at his side and the silence of the Rangers, referee Brenton Kopra blew his whistle and pointed to the spot in what seemed like a perplexing decision. Lanau-Atkinson stepped up and slotted it home past Mark Grace with ease.

The Lions controlled the remainder of the first half but were guilty of overplaying it horrendously at times, stroking the ball around aimlessly side to side and backwards, whilst the majority of the time when they did go forward they turned over possession or didn't carve out great chances.

Half time rolled around and have interim coach Mark Broadbent a chance to inspire his team. They came out, and to their credit, dominated all but a five minute period of the second half. Again they were guilty of overplaying it and wasting a lot of good chances.

In the 69th minute, Kopra adjudged Joel Griffioen to have upended a Lions player within the box and pointed to the spot. The foul looked to have occurred just outside the box so it was met with some conjecture from the players. Downes stepped up and hammered home confidently to give the Lions their goal and to bring the game back to 1-1.

The Lions continued to control the game but in the 85th minute they nearly coughed up a goal as Grace decided late that he couldn't pick up a ball and decided to kick it away instead, with Harry Thannhauser nearly on hand to put it into the net. Three minutes later, the Lions had a host of half chances as a scramble inside the 18 yard box resulted in two to three blocked shots in the space of seconds before it was finally pushed out for a fruitless corner.

Kopra blew for full time after four minutes of added time and both teams had to settle with a point, still rooted to the foot of the PS4 NPL Tasmania ladder.

Kingborough team manager David Cooper was disappointed in the result,

"The boys are disappointed, the way we played we deserved to win."

"To the Rangers credit they battled it out."

"...the way we played was certainly more important given the way we've played in the last few games."

"In that respect (the play) really, really happy, but disappointed to only have a draw but it's the first points for the year so we can build from there."

Northern Rangers coach Dane Hudson was happy with the point,

"yeah (happy with the result), I thought both sides fought for the draw."

"I thought they (the Lions) played really good football. We defender really well which we wanted to especially after last week."

"Football's not nice when you win a game on penalties, today we drew a game on penalties."

"I thought they (the Lions) did enough in open play to score from open play, and we had a couple of chances too. 1 all draw, two penalties, you know."

So both the struggling teams registered their first point of the year and will aim to build from this point forward.