Reaction

The visit to Ibrox was never going to be an easy task for “The Wasps” against league leaders Rangers who had dangerously lost their first league game of the season the previous week against Hibernian. Following Rangers Remembrance Day tribute, the home side looked to take the game to their visitors but disappointingly an error allowed the home side to get the early lead they had hoped for, Andy McNeil being caught in two minds and put his weak clearance straight to Martyn Waghorn, who expertly shot the ball into the back of the net. Three minutes later James Tavernier doubled their lead with a well placed free kick. To their credit Alloa weathered the storm and created two gilt edged chances, five minutes before half time Michael Chopra looked to punish a Rob Kiernan error, having time to run in on goal his shot beat Rangers keeper Wes Foderingham, but came crashing back out off the crossbar, a minute later Eddie Ferns broke free on goal, but delayed his shot and Lee Wallace got back to somehow save the day. This was “The Wasps” best spell in the game and at this level you will be punished for not taking your chances. Barrie McKay then pounced on a poor Michael Chopra ball and the alert Waghorn again finished clinically. In the second half the Alloa players showed great determination and concentration to thwart the Rangers advances. Ex Rangers player Kyle McAusland had a headed attempt before Eddie Ferns turned sinner, with a stamp on Rangers youngster Jordan Thompson, which reduced Danny Lennon’s side to ten men. Seventeen year old Ryan Hoggan was then introduced to make his Wasps League debut, and deserving presence in the game. Then after all the good work in the second half, Nicky Clark made it 4-0 with a header deep into time added on, which was cruel, albeit a deserved win for Rangers.

danny lennon at ibrox

I take a lot of positives from today’s game, in terms of how well we competed, the attitude and application of the players was fantastic, however when you come to Ibrox you know that when you come up against a big club like this and Rangers had a point to prove, which made it doubly hard, after coming from a result last week when they lost to Hibernian, so they had a point to prove, why they believe they are the best in the league at this moment in time. They certainly did that today as well as the quality of the three goals in the first half, they were absolutely first class finishes from their point of view but like anything we certainly had a helping hand within that.

The teams are Worlds apart in terms of size, finances, etc, – I asked my players prior to coming here today to go out and compete and apply themselves with the right attitude and application they would be winners in my eyes, regardless of the score, so we will take these positives from the game today and we now have to put them together in the games, when we do not face the top teams like Rangers, with the same quality week in week out, unfortunately we will not be playing in such a wonderful environment as this every week but we will still need to go with the same frame of mind and we cannot let that level of performance drop.

It would have been very interesting if Michael Chopra’s shot which came back off the cross bar and the one where Eddie Ferns goes through, but it was wonderful defending from Lee Wallace to get back, probably no other Rangers player on the pitch would have got back, and goals certainly do change games, Rangers then went down the other end of the park and unfortunately for us Jason Marr slipped and as all good strikers do, Martyn Waghorn capitalised with a fantastic finish.

I thought Waghorn’s movement today was terrific, I thought even as well as we tried to plug the gaps –NASA couldn’t have kept track of him today with his movement, he was absolutely fantastic. The first goal we lost was a sore one I would like to see it again but from my first point of view I thought Andy McNeil should have picked it up, but other than that if he thought he couldn’t pick it up rather than kick it back into an area in the centre of the goal you have to put it into the Sandy Jardine Stand.

Quality players will punish you for wee mistakes, other weeks we might have got away with it with that kind of error. Even at two nothing down as early in the game, I still felt that having watched Rangers in the past, they never really got at us in terms that they did earlier in the season at Alloa, also when you are playing against the top teams you know a wee bit more about them and we knew a wee bit more about ourselves and while 4-0 looks bad, it terms of the result, but to come here and put on the level of performances we did for the club our size in a highly competitive league I thought we did absolutely well. My message at half-time was that we were never going to come back out and score four goals or three goals to get back in the game and the message to the players was not to allow it to go to four, five or six, which they can do to teams which has happened already this season.

So our aim was to stay to our game plan and make sure that we didn’t concede more and the most disappointing thing was then to lose the fourth goal in time added on, which put a slight damper on the second half performance.

Eddie Ferns made a rash decision, which we all saw, but he has held his hand up and apologised to his teammates which I greatly admire that he was wrong, which made it even more difficult for us. It was also great to give 17 year old Ryan Hoggan his league debut and for him as a young player to come here and get a wee flavour of the environment, we hope he grows in it and takes all the experience in.