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First defeat for Hughes’ Rangers

Thursday, 5 January 2012

LISBURN DISTILLERY 3, CARRICK RANGERS 1: The interim management team of Michael Hughes and Colin Telford suffered their first defeat on the very ground where they had won their first match just two weeks earlier; this time losing 3-1 to Distillery at Ballyskeagh.
Gary Liggett set the Whites on their way on ten minutes when he was given too much room to man oeuvre, racing through to trigger a left foot drive past Declan Brown into the bottom right hand corner of the net.
Carrick almost scrubbed that one out just nine minutes later when Grant Hutchinson stabbed an Anto Lagan cross just wide of the target.
Instead, it as Distillery who doubled their lead on 26 minutes, though Carrick surely ought to have had a free kick as Paul McDowell was chopped down by Mark Cooley - only for the home side to feed the ball through for Liggett to race through and add his second; his task made that bit easier by keeper Brown's reckless dash off his line.
Rangers pulled one back on 66 minutes when Paul Heatley scampered onto a long clearance from the keeper which had been helped on by a Distillery defender.
Distillery, though, thought they had regained their two goal cushion, only for substitute Andy Hall's effort to be rather harshly cancelled out for offside.
The Whites, however, grabbed their third just minutes later, with Liggett fastening onto Pat McShane's searching pass to complete his hat trick.
Carrick's troubles weren't yet over, as Anto Lagan was shown a straight red for cynically chopping down Philip Simpson. However, out on the right flank and just over the half way line, it was hardly a clear cut goalscoring opportunity and Lagan might justifiably have expected to see yellow and not red.
There was no such excuse though for Andy Smith who was rightly dismissed for an alleged stamping offence, as Rangers finished the game with only nine men.
While the sending offs made no difference to Saturday's result, Lagan's dismissal will mean that he is now automatically ruled out of Saturday's home game against Coleraine, where Davy McAlinden is also under a one match ban, having picked up five bookings.
Carrick Rangers; Brown (Valko) - Smith, McAlinden, Taggart, Murray - Owens (McClean), Hutchinson (Addis), Anderson, Heatley - McDowell, Lagan. Subs (unused) Deans, Lynch.