Athletic Reserves on the road

As the morbid weather has forced the closure of Wembley Park today, only the Wanganui Athletic Reserves get the chance to take the field this weekend in the Western Premiership clash with league leaders New Plymouth Rangers at Merrilands Domain in New Plymouth.

The last time these two teams met, Rangers schooled the Reserves with a massive 12-0 victory at Wembley Park.

Given the Reserves are carrying a string of losses into the match, Rangers will be confident of dishing out more of the same today on the Athletic's development side.

However, the recent weeks have seen the Reserves pull back their deficits in each match, culminating in the narrow 2-1 loss to the Marist 3rds last weekend, so the result may not be as clear cut as Rangers will be dreaming of.

The young side has started to gel a bit more, and has benefited immensely from the inclusion of senior team members over the past few weeks, so it will be interesting to see how the side sizes up to the mammoth challenge of holding back the rampant Rangers attack.

But the Reserves will be banking on their own attack and strong defensive efforts to counter the blue tide on their own home ground, and will certainly be aiming to cause an upset to the home side, and hopefully catch them being complacent, having recently secured themselves top of the table comfortably.