Cambuslang Rangers draw with EK Thistle

Aug 5 2009 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

Cambuslang Rangers 2 EK Thistle 2

CAMBUSLANG Rangers opened their sectional league cup campaign with a 2-2 draw at home to East Kilbride Thistle.

Lang boss Alan Wardlaw was pleased with the way his side performed in a very hard-fought and keely contested game, with both teams performing well.

But he felt that at the end of the day, a draw was a reasonable reflection, but conceeded East Kilbride had a couple of very good chances to seal the game but for keeper Jon Connolly pulling off a couple of good saves.

The Lang’s first was scored by Brian Smith after some good interplay from Irvine and Queen. East Kilbride equalised after some slack defending and a lucky break of the ball down the right side.

Wardlaw said: “It was a very tough game, but I felt over the piece a draw was probably a fair reflection of the game, as both teams fought very hard for the result.

“The first half was very even with us going in 1-1 at half-time, but in the second East Kilbride certainly piled on the pressure and could have had a couple of goals, but Connolly kept us in the game.”

The second half was pretty even for the first 15 minutes until Lang made two substitutions, Hoey and Mathews coming on for Thomson and Dunn, who both worked hard for the hour.

Unfortunately Mathews came off after being injured only five minutes later.

This unsettled the Cambuslang pattern and allowed EK to dominate for the following 20 minutes when they took the lead.

Wardy continued: “We made a couple of changes and had to freshen up the midfield, but after we’d brought on David Mathews we had to make him off again pretty quickly.

“He’d just come on but he was caught in a tackle, and I don’t think there was any malice in it, but it resulted in him being injured in a very tender area and required a couple of stitches.

“As we had no other midfielders on the bench, we had to replace Mathews with a forward, which upset our play, and it opened things up which allowed East Kilbride to score again.

“For the last 10 minutes we then turned it up and upped the pressure on them in an attempt to get back into the game, which we did in the dying minutes when Queen slotted away following a melee inside the EK box.

“There were tough tackles going in from both sides and the ref seemed a bit card happy with some trivial fouls getting a yellow but strangely some hefty tackles received nothing.

“All in all, it was a good point for us, and they were a much-improved team from the side we played last year.”

Wardlaw added: “There were some good perfomances in the team, noteably Fergie and the rest of the defence, Brian Smith in midfield and Queen and Mark Ross worked their behinds off up front.

“But special mention to James Donnelly who was on the recieving end of some special treatment but still turned in an excellent performance.”

Lang: Connolly, Ferguson, Bishop, Doak, Thomson, Smith, Dunn, Irvine, Donnelly, Ross, Queen. Subs: Rea, Hoey, Mathews, Templeton, Rice, Docherty.

And Cambuslang Rangers romped to a 3-0 win over Blantyre Victoria on Saturday afternoon.

But Lang boss Alan Wardlaw says it wasn’t a case of the opposition performing poorly against his side, it was simply that his own side played so well.

Goals from James Donnelly, Craig Ferguson and Brian Smith saw off their central league division one rivals.

He said: “It was a very good performance, and I said to the guys before kick off we’d played well against East Kilbride and wanted us to build on it.

“There were things we needed to tighten up before the game, and even afterwards it’s the same again. There’s always something you can learn from.

“We made a couple of changes to the line-up, and it all just seemed to click. We’ve won 3-0 against a side who are always very difficult to beat.

“I really don’t want to take anything away from them as I felt they were a good side, I don’t think it’s a case that they played badly against us - we just clicked so well and didn’t let them play.

“I’ve got to be delighted with the team performance, and particularly the way some of our signings played.”