Whitby Town v Stafford Rangers

REPORT

A second half goal denied Stafford Rangers a share of the spoils from their midweek trip to Whitby Town and extended their losing run to four games.

Rangers fielded 16 year old Jack Shorrock at left back after he joined the club on loan from Port Vale while Connor Heath was another debutant after his loan registration from Southport finally went through.

Although the better chances fell to the home side, it was an evenly fought contest and Rangers felt that they deserved a point out of the game.

The first effort on goal came from the Boro’s Sean Cooke but his long range effort was wide of the target.

Shorrock passed his first test blocking Jacob Gratton and also got in the way of Junior Mondal’s goal bound effort.

Ethan Stewart was another to get in the way of the Whitby man and when he finally managed to get a shot through the Stafford defence, Cam Belford saved comfortably.

Mondal was the key to Whitby’s attacking play and set up his side’s best chance of the first half on 16 minutes with a left wing cross that was met first time by Bradley Fewter but his shot came back off the bar where Gratton wasted the follow up opportunity by putting the rebound over.

Whitby kept coming and skipper Daniel Rowe headed wide while Belford slid out to just beat Mondal to the ball.

Rangers managed to withstand the prressure and could have gone in at the half time break with the lead but the trio of Joe Willis, Sean Cooke and Kaiman Anderson all had shots blocked in a matter of seconds.

It was a scrappy start to the second half litterd with fouls and cautions to Stewart and Bramwell.

Jake Moult made two important blocks in the Stafford area to keep out Mondal and Adam Gell before Rowe headed straight at Belford.

Gell missed the target with a couple more chances that came his way before Mondal finally broke the deadlock on 72 minutes.

Th goal came from a deep centre from Griffiths which was headed down by Rowe and Mondal punced to rifle his shot past Belford.

It proved to be enough to condemn Rangers to another defeat. Although they kept battling to the end they were unable to create any clear cut chances. It was small consolation that Atherton’s heavy defeat at Marine lifted the Boro off the bottom of the table.

Whitby Town: 1 Shane Bland, 2 Priestley Griffiths, 3 Aaron Haswell, 4 Jamie Bramwell, 5 Daniel Rowe, 6 Harrison Beeden, 7 Lewis Hawkins, 8 Adam Gell (12 Alfie Doherty 76m), 9 Bradley Fewster (16 Stephen Walker 80m), 10 Jacob Gratton, 11 Junior Mondall. Unused Subs 14 Connor Smith, 15 Jerome Greaves, 17 Connor Simpson

Stafford: 1 Cam Belford, 2 Andy Burns (16 AJay Leitch-Smith 85m), 3 Jack Shorrock (15 Ben Woods 75m), 4 Joe Willis, 5 Ethan Stewart, 6 Jake Moult, 7 Connor Heath (14 Niah Payne 71m), 8 Sam Bird, 9 Nathan Blissett, 10 Sean Cooke, 11 Kaiman Anderson. Unused Subs: 12 Tyreece Onyeka, 17 Lewis PorterReferee: Macauey Gibson

Cautions: Griffiths, Bramwell (Whitby), Willis, Stewart (Rangers)

Att: 319

Report by Chris Elsley