'It's a relief' says Kerr as Rangers end losing streak

Enniskillen Rangers secured their first win since September with a 6-0 victory over Augher Stars at the Ball Range.

Michael Kerr’s side ended a six-game losing streak with a comprehensive win against the team that had beaten them in their last match, with Jordan McClure scoring a hat-trick and Jake Browne, Kyle Deery and Steven Carson also finding the net. 

Kerr admitted he was relieved to finally get a win, and he is now focused on trying to build on that success.  

“It’s a relief to get the win, but the challenge now is to back that up with a win against Killen this weekend who have just won eight on the bounce,” he said. 

“It has been a tough few weeks and months on the back of six straight defeats, but the confidence never dropped.  

"We worked really hard at training over the last two weeks, and I was delighted to get the win.

"It was three points we needed, but we are still not happy with where we are in the league.

"We want to put in another good performance and see if we can get a result and finish the last two games before Christmas on a high note. The position we are in now is still not ideal, and it is not where I want to be.” 

Rangers were still smarting from their 5-4 loss to Stars two weeks previously, and Kerr acknowledged the reverse fixture at home was an ideal chance to exact revenge.

“It was probably the one game you would pick to play again after being beaten by Augher, for a couple of reasons,” he admitted.  

“Number one, you want to make it right. You want to turn that result around because we knew we really let ourselves down that day in the first half. We were so poor.

"Then they had a couple of boys suspended, so it was probably the game you would have picked.” 

Kerr also made a few tactical changes in a bid to avoid a repeat of the disastrous first half last time out that saw them trail 5-0 at the interval.  

“We worked quite a bit last week in training on what they would bring at us,” he revealed.  

“We found the last day that all their play was long balls, and we just didn’t deal with them.

"Thankfully we had Eoin McManus and Paul Coulter back in the team, two boys who are good in the air. We set up 4-3-3 but we changed it into a 5-4-1 from free kicks and goal kicks.

"Paul dropped in between the centre backs and our aim out of possession was to win that header and win the second ball. On Saturday we won the first ball nine out of ten times and the second ball we were picking up.

"In transition, we were making the pitch as big as we could and trying to attack them. We moved Jordy McClure from the left to the right and he was excellent.

"He got a hat-trick and was really impressive. It was his best performance in a while.  Keeping a clean sheet was really important.

"At four or five up that was the one thing I kept saying to them. We put a focus on that and defensively I thought we were sound.

"They had two long-distance shots in the first half and in the second half it was long free kicks pumped into the box, but they never really opened us up.” 

Rangers could not have wished for a better start, taking the lead after just two minutes.  

A free kick slid down the side of the Augher defence gave Keenan a sight of goal, and although his shot was parried by the goalkeeper, McClure bundled the ball over the line at his second attempt.  

Rangers then added a second after half an hour when a through ball from their own half found Jason Keenan, and he turned the last defender and advanced on the keeper before squaring for Jake Browne to tap in. 

Keenan had to be withdrawn with an injury before the break, but it had no adverse effect on the home team who added a third five minutes into the second half when they won possession on the halfway line and Browne found McClure on the right wing.

He ran at the defence and accelerated past the defender before lifting the ball over the keeper and into the far top corner from a tight angle.  

Five minutes later Ciaran Smith slid a ball into Jake Browne 30 yards from goal, and he lofted a cross-field pass to Kyle Deery who took a touch and fired past the keeper at the near post. 

Rangers made it five when a ball from defence was flicked into the path of McClure, and the striker ran at the defence and from 12 yards fired a low shot into the bottom corner to complete his hat-trick. 

Steven Carson completed the victory with his first senior goal for the club, curling a free kick past the keeper from 25 yards out.