Tranmere Rovers
Reserves Lose Out to Strong Oldham Reserve Side
By Deadly Submarine
September 15 2009
Tranmere’s Reserve side lost their first League game of the season at Kirklands tonight against a strong and perhaps too physical Oldham Athletic side. Rovers went behind fairly early game before goals from Charlie Barnett and Josh Macaughley either side of half-time put them in front. However two late Latics goals were enough to hand them the win.
Tranmere's second string, made up mainly of youth team and young first team players, fell to their first defeat in the totesport.com Reserve Division One West tonight at home to a strong and overly physical Oldham Athletic reserve side at Cammell Laird's Kirklands Ground.
Shaun Garnett's team went into the game on the back of two wins out of two in the League following a 3-0 win over Morecambe (H) and a 1-0 win over Blackpool (A) although they had lost their first match of the season at home to Walsall in the League Cup back in August.
Seb Carole Made his First Appearance in a Rovers Shirt
New signing Seb Carole made his debut on the wing for Rovers whilst recent addition Kithson Bain followed up his first team debut as a substitute last Saturday by completing another 90 minutes for the Reserves, his second in a week.
The line-up chosen by Shaun Garnett and watched closely once again by John Barnes and Jason McAteer who it is good to see at the Reserve games, was as follows.....
Coughlin
Rule Taylor (c) Pursehouse Benson
Mackreth Barnett Power Carole
Bain Macauley
Subs: Collister, Jennings, Roberts, Gibbs, Fairclough
With goalkeeper Joe Collister on standby for possible first team action away at Exeter on Saturday afternoon it was no surprise that Andrew Coughlin appeared in the starting eleven whilst Ross Rule who has played upfront in the past, made his second appearance at right-back in the space of seven days meaning that Alex Pursehouse played centre-back alongside Captain Ash Taylor.
Rovers began brightly with new signing Seb Carole looking lively and sharp out on the left side of midfield and an early combination of passes saw Kithson Bain unleash a superb long range shot which was tipped wide by the goalkeeper for a corner.
Max Power was running the midfield with some success alongside Charlie Barnett who got an early telling off from the referee for showing perhaps a little too much aggression when an Oldham player was rightly booked. Barnett himself rightly escaped a booking though and the game continued soon after.
Despite starting well, Rovers fell behind just after the ten minute mark when some poor defending allowed Oldham the time and space to plough forward and score with relative ease past Coughlin who to be fair was helpless to stop it.
Kithson Bain continued to make an impact and again shot from range midway through the half which was good to see after last week's more unselfish display in front of goal in which he often chose to pass to his teammates rather than shoot.
Coughlin had to twice be alert to prevent the visitors doubling their lead whilst at the other end Rovers peppered the Oldham box with crosses but there was no end product. That was until just four minutes before half time when a somewhat fortunate ricochet in the Oldham penalty area sat nicely for Charlie Barnett and although the midfielder still had a bit to do, he tucked the ball away well to make it 1-1, a scoreline which remained until half-time.
HALF-TIME: TRANMERE ROVERS 1 - 1 OLDHAM ATHLETIC
As the second half kicked off with no changes to Tranmere's line-up, Rovers took the lead almost immediately when Josh Macauley found himself in some space on the left hand side of the Oldham penalty area and despite the closing angle he finished superbly to give his side the lead.
The lead was something to build on for Rovers and through Jack Mackreth and Josh Macauley down the right side Rovers did look like providing the firepower to score again but just ten minutes after going ahead, the visitors scored again in somewhat controversial circumstances.
Kithson Bain Made His Second Rovers Reserves Appearance
As Oldham attacked, Ross Rule looked to have been fouled and remained down injured on the edge of the area as the Oldham player netted the ball. The goal counted and after lengthy treatment from Les Parry, Ross Rule was replaced by Dale Jennings with Jack Mackreth moving to right back and Jennings to right midfield in Mackreth's place.
It looked like Rovers would hang on their unbeaten start in the League but with just minutes remaining a cross from the right wasn't cut out and Oldham netted what proved to be the winner to make it 3-2.
The game ended in a bad tempered fashion with players bickering and the referee having to break a couple of incidents including blatent timewasting by the Oldham players who took an eternity to take a throw-in right at the end.
FULL-TIME: TRANMERE ROVERS 2 - 3 OLDHAM ATHLETIC
Ashton Taylor
Kithson Bain looked lively and for the first half at least, so did Seb Carole although in the second half he had much less of an impact on the game. Max Power was excellent as ever across the middle of the pitch but the award for Man of the Match goes to captain Ash Taylor who was commanding alongside the equally impressive Alex Pursehouse.
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15/09/2009 22:43
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