The Dugout Reaction!

Following a 1-1 draw against The North West Counties Football League side Steeton AFC, which saw an early strike by Harvey Ribbons cancelled out by a goal by Kayle Price, Rangers Manager Dan Marshall and First Team Coach Ben Lawrence spoke to KDRAFC Media following the game. Here is what they had to say:

On the match itself …

(DM) The thing that has pleased me the most today has been the application from the whole team. We’ve had a tough game on Wednesday that we managed to win against West Yorkshire Premier opposition and we’ve not had the biggest of squads today, but the lads have gone out there for ninety minutes and worked their socks off and got a great reward. I’m even tempted to say that we are disappointed not to get the win with the amount of chances we created. All in all, a fantastic performance and another step in the right direction.

On the Rangers defence, which they have worked on during the Pre-Season training sessions.

(BL) On Wednesday night I thought that we were solid as a unit and again today they showed the same, apart from the goal which was a well taken one. I thought that as the match progressed, we were up against it for large periods, especially towards the last twenty minutes and I said to Dan that I didn’t think that there was a lot of difference between the two teams, but our fitness and concentration levels were high today, even better then on Wednesday and possibly that was due to the inclusion of John Large who is a communicator and keeps the backline going. I also think that there was a lot more communication throughout the team and especially the defence, which really does help.

(DM) The other pleasing thing for me was that we started with three out of four lads who played in the Reserves defence last season and they have stepped up well. We swapped it around and had a mixture of First Team players from last season and Reserves and they all did really well which is excellent. You could see that they were concentrating and knew their positions which is key and was an issue that we needed to rectify from last season.

I have to say that Maxi (Andy Maxted) in goal, who did us a massive favour today, also looked very comfortable with the lads in front of him, and in all reality wasn’t really troubled apart from the goal which I thought he was very unlucky to concede to be honest.

I want us to keep working hard and keep progressing as we don’t want to stand still. We have a great squad who want to drive us forward and get us to where we want to be next season.

On youngster Harvey Ribbons who had another impressive game.

(BL) I think the thing with Harvey is that he has come in and he’s young, fresh and wants to impress. I think that one of the key things is that he is positive and wants to keep learning and that positivity is what we need. He deserved his goal today and it was a superb finish and credit also to Sam (Straker) for a wonderful pass. Harvey has shown us a lot in the last three games and I think he will be a great player for us, but it’s up to us now to get the best from him and help him improve.