This Is Guernsey

By Aaron Scoones

Rangers 3, North 2

NORTH have kissed goodbye to retaining their Priaulx title. The chocolate-and-blues’ defeat at Rangers on Saturday was their fifth loss in the league.

‘To be fair, it’s a long way off for us,’ said North boss Mick Le Prevost.

‘We’re now nine points behind, but we won’t give up. We’ll keep going until we can’t win the league.

‘Maybe the league is out of our reach but we’re still in the FA Cup, Jeremie and Stranger so there’s a lot to play for.

‘We’ll still keep going.’

All Rangers’ goals came in the first half when they had the slope and the wind behind them.

North got two back in the second through Jamie Ferbrache and Craig Young but despite dominating, they just could not get the third goal to salvage a point.

‘Disappointing first half - we weren’t at the races,’ said Le Prevost.

‘We gave away three bad goals. Second half I changed it to three up front, got two goals but we couldn’t get the third.

‘I don’t think we deserved any more. We didn’t deserve to win.

‘They were the better side.’

The home side opened their account within the first 10 minutes through Iain Lowe.

It was the first game back for the midfielder after he injured his knee on the opening day of the season.

He found the back of the net when the North defence failed to clear their lines.

A patched-up North, who were without injured regulars such as Simon Tostevin, Alex Le Prevost, Gavin Le Page and Paul Page, were looking all at sea.

They were kept in it only by their keeper Richard Davey as he pulled off a number of fine saves.

There was nothing he could do about Rangers’ second, however, when he first denied Ryan Gontier in a one-on-one situation but was helpless to try and stop Jon Veron from a couple of yards out when the striker fired the ball home after Shane Billien hit the crossbar on the rebound.

North never looked like threatening their opponents’ goal and, to make matters worse, referee George Jennings was not hesitant in showing a few of them yellow cards.

One of those was to 16-year-old debutant Jack Domaille, whose name went in the book for a rash challenge as half-time closed in.

The free kick resulted in Rangers’ third goal when Davey undid all his good work when he went to punch clear Phil Sarl’s long kick into the box but horribly missed the ball as it bounced into the goal.

Into the second half and now playing downhill towards the clubhouse, the visitors started to look like the reigning champions.

They clawed one back just before the hour mark when Youth Two star Matt Loaring on the wing fed his older brother Jon who, in turn, found Young to slip it into an empty net.

The second came nearly 10 minutes later when Ferbrache deftly chipped Rangers keeper Chris Parrott.

But try all they could, North could not find a way past Parrott again.

Rangers only real chance in the second half came in the last 10 minutes when Veron, who had looked the best player on the pitch, forced a save from Davey.

Billien tucked into the rebound but Domaille was on the line and did well to block the shot.

‘It was a really good performance,’ said Rangers coach Mac Gallienne afterwards.

‘We played really well from the first whistle. We got our tackles in and we broke up their football.

‘It was fully deserved.’