NFC Kesh 1 Killen Rangers 1

Killen Rangers were unable to close the gap on fourth-placed Kesh at Michael Connolly Park as the sides played out a 1-1 draw on Saturday.

Jamie Sproule gave the visitors the lead early on before player/manager Ryan Campbell equalised as the teams could not be separated for the remainder of the 50 minutes of football that followed. Killen remain in fifth, two points behind Saturday’s opponents.

Kesh boss Campbell said after the game: “Compared to what we were like against Lisbellaw (last week), we just weren’t as fluid. You get them games, but we still had two or three great chances to win the game and we never converted them.

“It’s frustrating in that way. They sat in and tried to hit us on the counter-attack and their left-back has a big long throw, if they were over the halfway line at all, he was launching the ball directly into our box, so, it was difficult to deal with.”

Killen took the lead with only seven minutes on the clock, Kesh man Kyle Malone’s attempted clearance came off one his own defenders and dropped kindly for Sproule to run in one-on-one with goalkeeper Thomas McMulkin and finish neatly for 1-0.

Kesh grew into the game following the goal having felt hard done by to surrender the opener.

And the home side found the leveller five minutes before half time as Campbell finished off a nice move.

Kesh looked the more likely to grab the winner in the second half as they went close on a number of occasions. Danny Wilson dragged a left-footed that came off the post and wide and Jake Irvine made his into the box but fired over from close range.

Killen had chances of their own towards the end as Sproule saw a shot sail just outside the post and McMulkin had to push Matty McKenna’s header over the bar.

Kesh move onto the Junior Cup this weekend where they will play Lincoln Swifts away from home.

“It’s a good enough draw we got, just a pity it’s not at home, but we have to deal with it,” Campbell added.

“We’ll go down there and at this stage, there’ll be no easy games, so we need to make sure we are at it. I think we have one of the better draws, I told the lads we have no better chance of getting to the quarter-finals, so we’ll go and give it our all.”