Reaction

The Wasps showed great concentration, defended superbly and stuck to their task and belief they could get a result against league leaders Rangers again on Saturday, this is the third time in the past two seasons that Rangers have failed to win at the Indodrill Stadium. Rangers certainly had their chances but the longer the game went on there was always going to be an opportunity and after Wes Foderingham had denied Dougie Hill, by tipping his header over the bar, Jason Marr headed home from Mitch Megginson’s inch perfect corner to put the home side ahead. Rangers were stunned into action and new signing Michael O’Halloran scored eight minutes from the end to rescue a point and deny Alloa their first home victory of the season. Even after this Rangers defender Danny Wilson had to react quickest to clear another dangerous ball into the Rangers box with Alloa captain Dougie Hill lurking behind him.

jack ross after draw against rangers

It’s for other people to judge if the narrowing of the pitch had any effect on today’s result, it’s obviously a factor in the way the game pans out of course it is but I must stress this was done a few weeks ago not just prior to the Rangers game, it is something we thought could help us throughout the course of the rest of the season and I think it has done, but we are still waiting for that elusive home win this season which still escapes us but we have to be delighted with the point against the team which is top of the league for a good reason that they are a really good side, so I would much prefer to talk up what my players achieved today than anything else.

I think there is a huge number of things which pleased me in the performance, you could point to individual performances like the goalkeepers, you obviously need him to go and have a big game against a team like Rangers, I think the teams organisation, their understanding of what we are trying to do and we didn’t set out to give up so much territory as was happening at times, believe me that was not our idea but it’s forced upon you at times because we were facing a good side with good players, who understand their system and do it very well, it was their discipline in that respect to continue to do the hard work was the most pleasing thing.

The spirit which the players have shown over the past six weeks has been terrific and it’s nice to see they are now starting to get some tangible reward for that in gaining another point. I have never sensed, nothing other than the belief that we can stay up, it’s something I’ve tried to install since day one, we need to stay positive, we have picked up some disappointing results even when we were playing well, that will not change and had we ended up losing today it would still have change, cause we could have, let’s be honest, I’m not going to stand here and say that we didn’t carry a bit of good fortune.

At times our goalkeeper made good saves but there was opportunities Rangers will feel they could have scored especially in the early part of the game which sometimes people forget about so we needed that today, the effort levels from my players remembering they had played on Tuesday night, they earned that bit of good fortune. Jason’s goal is something we have worked reasonably hard on with the time restraints of our training in terms of set pieces, we know now with the dimensions of the pitch that is one thing you can utilise more because the players can deliver the ball into better areas more easily because of the narrowness of the pitch it’s something we have worked on, we have good delivery in that respect and two centre half’s in particular who will get on the end of these balls very well, it was a fantastic header, I knew if we got these opportunities there was a chance, but it was just getting enough of them in these areas which was the problem.

Our next game against Hibernian is another difficult game, when we looked at the fixtures and we knew that we had Rangers & Hibernian back to back we knew it would be difficult because these two teams are at the top of the league for a good reason, and they are huge club’s as well so it’s different, we will go to a pitch which is wider, and we will come up against a different system but we will do as much preparation as we can within our time with the players, but also trying to do the things we do, in training two nights a week, there is a real balance between little bits that help you and equally trying to get other players in to help us win games as well.