Hall Road Rangers made a winning start to 2023 as they secured a 1-3 victory against Reckitts AFC at Hull University.

Tom Oliver had an opportunity for Hall Road inside the first minute which was comfortably saved. Immediately after this, Reckitts took the lead when they capitalised on a mix up within the Rangers defence.

In the 15th minute, a fantastic pass from Jordan Hall picked out Tom Iversen who slotted the ball home to get Rangers back on level terms with his third goal of the season. Iversen almost had a second goal in the 26th minute when he met Luke Bullement’s cross and sent a header over the bar.

Rangers continued to carve out chances as the first half wore on. This included efforts from Mason Chaffer and Iversen which were saved. Chaffer would put Rangers in front with his first goal for the club in the 38th minute after latching onto a long pass from James Murray.

This lead could have been extended in the 64th minute as a lay off from Iversen picked out Oliver who fired an effort over the bar. Rangers made it 1-3 in the 73rd minute when Rob Hall produced a thunderous strike from distance which perfectly flew into the top corner of the Reckitts net. This was Hall’s first goal for the club.

Having secured a third successive league win, Rangers find themselves occupying fourth position in the Humber Premier League Premier Division table.

MOTM- Tom Iversen sponsored by Newbegin Financial Services

Hall Road Rangers: Withill, Pulford (Davies 87’), Murray, J. Hall, Bullement, Andrew (C), Wray (R. Hall 64’), Shepard (Salter 74’), Chaffer, Oliver, Iversen.

Subs Not Used: Waud, Miller.

When asked for his thoughts after the game, Rangers manager Chris Burke said:

“To be fair, it’s a bit mixed really. Being realistic about it, it’s the first game back after the Christmas break and we’ve had a few weeks off.

The lads have been ticking over and were back in training on Wednesday with a good session, but there are a lot of things we could’ve done better today. I’ll give them a little bit of dues as they got the three points which is the main thing.

If we’re going to pick up on fine details, there were very good chances that we’ve created which we should be putting away. Again, I think that maybe comes down to a bit of rustiness and having that little bit of a break over Christmas. Maybe one too many mince pies, but it’s come good.

The main thing is we’re now three out of three with nine points out of our last three games which is the important thing for us to keep moving up the table. It puts us into a positive stead going into next week.”