Ladybridge Rangers 6 Daisy Hill Dynamoes 3

(Tom, Jake, Ben, Darren, Oliver, Liam)

Ladybridge got the season off to a great start with a thumping 6 – 3 win over Daisy Hill Dynamoes. Yet things didn’t begin well when the home side went behind early on finding themselves 1 – 0 down after only five minutes.

However, as the half wore on the Rangers began to find their rhythm and when Tom turned in James’ well taken corner to equalize Ladybridge stepped up a gear. In the following minutes Dan, James Ollie and Liam all had good efforts on goal and it wasn’t long before the Rangers nudged in front with a rocket shot from Jake to make it 2-1.

The boys were playing well all over the pitch, passing and moving superbly and Adam was having an excellent debut in defence protecting Andrew’s goal valiantly yet against the run of play the away side broke quickly out of midfield and made it 2-2 at the midway point of the first half. Yet Ladybridge came straight back at the Dynamoes with efforts from Ben, Liam and Alex and finally, just before the whistle, a pin point cross from Jake found Ben in the box and the No.7 slotted home to make it 3-2 at the interval.

At half time Neil pressed home the importance of pushing on and creating more chances and straight away the lads responded. A brilliant move saw James pick out Alex who threaded a superb ball through to Dazza who chased into the box then blasted home to make it 4-2 within minutes of the restart.

However the two goal lead was short lived as another good move from Daisy Hill led to a third goal for the visitors making the score 4-3. Following an excellent first half Ollie returned to the action and his first contribution to the second was to pick up the ball in midfield dribble into the box and fire home the home side’s fifth goal of the game.

All over the pitch players were showing superb skill, precision passing and tough tackling. Liam, Adam and Josh were rock solid in defence, Jake, Dan, Tom, Alex and Josh bossed the midfield and James, Ben, Ollie, Dazza were a handful for the opposition’s defence all through the game and when called upon Andrew handled confidently and commanded his area very well.

As the match reached its final stages the home side began to take control and after a fantastic piece of nifty footwork Liam hit home from ten yards out to make it 6-3 with five minutes to go and in the dying minutes Josh N was desperately unlucky to see his brilliant turn and hot com back off the post and land right in the goal keepers arms shortly before the final whistle.

Well done to both teams for producing such a brilliant game of football and congratulations to Man of the Match Dazza for his sparkling performance.

For more info on the Bolton & Bury District Junior Football League register at www.bbdjfl.com