Olly selected a much changed side from the one that either started or finished the game against SA Portmany on Monday night. Cole started in goal behind Bignot, Santos, Evatt and Rose. The midfield four was made up of Miller, Bircham, Chambers and Brown with Gallen and Furlong paired up top.

Before the game Olly and Mickey Adams made an appeal for peace and love in the stands. As ever Olly spoke with passion and was his usual charismatic self. Adams on the other hand has all the charisma of a garden chair! Unfortunately the words from both gaffers went unheeded as the half time show came to an end.

The first half was an absolute horror show as Rangers had a lot of the ball and only managed to create two chances. Unfortunately one of these was for Dele Adebola and the other was for Gary McSheffrey! In both cases poor passing between the back four and the midfield ended in the ball being dispatched past the blameless Cole.

For Adebola’s goal he was allowed a free run at Cole and he placed his shot calmly past the young keeper. In McSheffrey’s case Ian Evatt dallied on the ball and the Coventry striker robbed him and quick as a flash it was 2-0. Nothing had come off for Rangers and as the half-time whistle went there was only Cole that could say he had done all that was asked of him to anything like the standard expected by Olly or the 1000 or so R’s fans in attendance.

During the half you could sense that there was some simmering tension between the Rangers and Coventry fans and shortly before the end of the break it came to a head. In truth things probably looked worse than they were as thirty cretins decided now would be the time to assert there manliness on each other. The half kicked off regardless before the local police waded in with batons twirling and Olly was forced to come onto the mic in an attempt to restore order. Luckily he did, the police stopped twatting people, the people stopped twatting each other and the game could recommence.

Olly had made wholesale changes at the break with Cole, Bignot, Rose, Evatt, Santos, Miller, Chambers, Brown and Furlong making way for Royce, Shimmin, Hislop, Hugo, Shittu, Bean, Cook, Sturridge and Moore. Doherty was already on of course after a first half injury to Bircham and Gallen moved to the right of midfield to accommodate the changes.

Almost as soon as the uprising had been quelled Rangers gave themselves a lifeline with a sensational goal from Dean Sturridge. He collected a loose ball on the edge of the area before crashing it past Coventry’s sub keeper. Chris Day had played the first half for our opponents and in truth we had given him nothing to do.

Rangers were moving the ball far better now and the game was a far more even contest. The one way traffic of the first half had been replaced with a very entertaining game. Bean sent a shot over the bar after finding himself in nose bleed territory and Sturridge and Moore were showing good movement to find space in attack.

The equaliser when it came was a thing of beauty. Nigerian trialist Hugo had been swapped at full back with Shimmin and he was providing good support out wide for Gallen. He launched a blistering raid, beating two defenders before slipping the ball inside for Sturridge who made no mistake to notch his second of the game.

Rangers had a massive scare though when the outstanding McSheffrey was slipped through a static R’s defence and crashed the ball through Royce’s legs. His celebrations were short lived though as the young Spanish lino flagged for offside. From where I was sitting it seemed a terrible decision but it was pretty much in keeping with their showings for the whole tournament. One had a hare trigger and the other only flagged when someone appealed!

Things were even better minutes later when Gallen slammed home the third. Once again Sturridge was involved as he held the ball up well on the edge of the six yard box before turning the ball into Gallen’s path and allowing him to rasp a left footer into the corner. There was not long left to play now though and luckily the defence was not breached again and the R’s held on to claim the Copa Ibiza.

The scenes of celebration at the end were a little embarrassing to tell the truth as fireworks were gunned into the sky and a big sign lit up saying Thank You. I am assuming it was thank you for coming rather than thank you for turning our stadium into a battle zone!

The bright spots of the evening for me were the displays in the second half of Cook, Sturridge, Doherty, Gallen and trialist Hugo. They all played their parts in this come back and I would be amazed if Hugo is not signed fairly soon. In the first half only Cole showed the sort of form expected and I would think that a fair few of that first half line up might be a little bit worried as some of them are names you would have thought would be guaranteed a starting spot for the Hull game.

simon@qprnet.com