Team: Cant, Jude-Boyd, Leahy, Harrack, Rendall (capt), Angelov, Petrie, Talla, Balla, Murphy, Kolli
Attendance: 310
After Sammy had collected Alan Barnes, Simon Staal and Ifrom Park Royal, we arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in good time.
A limited number of programmes appeared, which had been printed off from their website and later team sheets also became available.
The young Rangers squad included a number of trialists. With some players unavailable, the Enfield side was made up witha number of first-teamers and a sprinkling of trialists.
After Rayan Kolli, operating on the left-flank, had been impeded, Harry Murphy’s free kick into the box somehow evaded everyone.
Then, a long diagonal ball found Peter Angelov and after taking aim, his shot was comfortably saved by Rhys Forster.
The home team went close to opening the scoring following a long ball upfield. Marcus Wyllie’s shot ended up coming off the post and going behind.
Another good opportunity soon followed when Mickey Parcell set up a trialist, which resulted in Harry Cant making an outstanding save.
On 33 minutes, after receiving a knock, Rayan Kolli was replaced by Gabriel Impanga-Mbambo.
Very few clear-cut chances followed and at the break it remained goalless.
Three changes were made after the interval, which saw Conor Clark, Alfie Tuck and a trialist replace Harry Cant, Peter Angelov and a trialist respectively. As for the home side, they changed their complete starting eleven.
Around 15 minutes or so later, four more substitutions were made when Jake Leahy, Kayden Harrack, Kieran Petrie and Lorent Talla made way for four trialists.
The deadlock was broken in the 68th minute after one of the trialists had burst forward and his low shot was well saved. But from the resulting corner, 17-year-old Noah McCann’s bullet header evaded Adi Connolly.
The R’s went down to ten men following a heavy challenge just outside the box. After receiving some attention, he was eventually forced to leave the field. And from the free kick, the ball was headed just wide of the target.
Rangers were denied a clear-cut penalty when, right in front of me, one of the trialists was blatantly pulled down in the penalty area, but Mr Keane wasn’t interested!
That one goal was enough to seal the win for the R’s.
Although it was a very windy afternoon, it somehow remained dry throughout.
Next up for the Development squad is a trip to a training camp in the Netherlands where they will take on SC Heerenveen.
Thanks to Sammy for the lift and to Simon for sending me two of his photos.
Steve Russell