Hall Road 1-2 Selby Town

A late Selby Town goal left Hall Road Rangers empty-handed as they suffered a 1-2 defeat at Haworth Park on Saturday. There was some early drama in the 3rd minute as Reece Moody was brought down inside the Selby box and the referee pointed straight to the penalty spot. Moody stepped up to take the penalty which was saved by Selby keeper and ex Hall Road player Jody Barford.

The first half was dominated by Hall Road as they provided the greater attacking threat and created a number of opportunities on the Selby goal. The majority of these resulted in fairly comfortable saves for Jody Barford.

Rangers took the lead in the 22nd minute when Reece Moody pounced on a loose ball and slotted it into the back of the net. The celebrations had to be temporarily put on hold due to a raised flag from the assistant referee, but the goal was eventually allowed to stand and Moody had his 7th league goal of the season. Rangers weren’t able to add to their lead in the remainder of the first half so they went into the break just one goal ahead.

The start of the second half saw Hall Road continue to try and double their lead and make themselves more comfortable. Craig Muirhead put a header over the bar in the 52nd minute whilst Callum Stone almost bundled the ball over the line a few minutes later.

Reece Moody could have had his second goal of the game when he ran clear of the Selby defence and looked to be through on goal. However, the assistant referee’s flag was raised and Moody was adjudged to be offside.

Selby subsequently began to build up some sustained pressure on the Rangers defence as they looked to get themselves back into the game. They found an equaliser in the 70th minute through Liam Flanagan’s free-kick which went through the body of Rangers keeper Tom Macauley.

Macauley pulled off a good save two minutes later to prevent the visitors from taking the lead. The Robins got their winning goal late on courtesy of a Harry Clapham effort.

Rangers joint boss Leon Sewell was pleased with his side’s first-half performance but was disappointed with how the second half unfolded.

“Before we scored our goal in the first half, we had a couple of chances in the first ten minutes. Then we had the penalty and then we got the goal. One-nil is always a tricky score. We came in at half-time and said to the lads that we weren’t going to change anything.

We needed to keep playing on the front foot like we did in the first 45 minutes because I thought we looked really good. In the second half, it was fits and starts as we did some good stuff and some stuff not so good.

Unfortunately, we shot ourselves in the foot. There was some ill discipline and I thought our pass completion was nowhere near where it should have been compared to the first half. It felt as though we defended for long periods of time in the second half. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing as there were a couple of decisions that could have maybe gone our way.

We had a goal in the second half which, for me, I believe was a goal and it was cancelled out. I think that would have made it two nil and it’d have been a different story from there. Fair play to Selby. There’s a reason why they’re in the top four and they kept going and ground us down” he said.

Oliver Harsley