Wow …. Who saw this coming, a 6 nil thrashing of our neighbours and arch rivals Lugarno in a preliminary final .This was a derby that no one who was at the game will ever forget. We arrived at the ground expecting a tough physical battle between two closely matched teams. We hadn’t beaten Lugarno this season and from the moment the opening whistle sounded Lugarno had entered the Ranger Zone, and after only 3 minutes Johnny calmly chipped the keeper from 30 metres out after seeing him off his line .The Lugarno shot stopper didn’t know at the time that he’d spend the next 87 minutes picking the ball out of his own net. We continued to dominate the 1st half with both Wayne and Mark narrowly missing chances, and after 30 minutes we doubled our lead when Maverick made a great break down the left wing and unselfishly crossed the ball to Michael for an easy tap in. Our only real disappointment of the 1st half was the unfortunate cautioning of Michael which will see him miss a grand final he deserves to play in. Lugarno came out hard for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half, but a great individual run from Michael and a calm finish gave us a 3 nil lead and took the wind out of Lugarno’s sails. 5 minutes later we had our 4th and Michael had a hatrick driving a free kick into the top corner, and he celebrated with 3 fingers in the air to the anger of their rather chatty goal keeper. It wasn’t too long before Michael put another free kick in and this time the celebration resembled the Ronaldo chest pump. But it wasn’t over yet. Gabe delivered a cross to Michael and he buried his 5th, it was the perfect way to finish off a wonderful season for him. Eventually the keeper made a save and I had to laugh when our supporters sitting on the west side of the stadium gave him the Bronx Cheer. It was a great team effort, not only did we score at will, but our defence never gave them a chance.

Now to next week, another grand final for the majority of this team. Arncliffe are a whole new challenge and we need to get over the excitement of this win and prepare for the biggest game of the season. Thanks to all the Rangers supporters that came down and cheered us to victory, I’m sure we entertained you. We play at 9-30 am this Sunday, we’d love to see as many people down there in green as possible to help us get over the line.

Please support all our four Grand Finals teams this weekend – the draw is here.

Go Rangers!