Enniskillen Rangers 2 Enniskillen Athletic 0

Enniskillen Rangers climbed into fourth spot in the Mercer League with a derby win at home to Enniskillen Athletic via goals from Jason Keenan and Jake Browne either side of half time.

The home team enjoyed the majority of possession at the Ball Range despite some key chances for both sides in the first half.

The first clear-cut opportunity of the game fell for Mark Cutler after a ball over the top dropped for the forward who took one touch before seeing his right-footed shot come off the underside of the crossbar and fly back out.

Athletic responded only a couple of minutes later when a counter-attack fell at the feet of Luke Flanagan whose shot came off the post and landed to Colm McNally. He dodged a challenge from centre-back Eoin McManus and his effort beat the Rangers goalkeeper but was blocked off the line by defender Neil Coulter.

Rangers broke the deadlock two minutes before half time when Jason Keenan got his head on the end of a wide free kick into the box to give his side a 1-0 advantage going into the interval.

Rangers were on the front foot at the start of the second half and it didn’t take long for them to double their lead.

Substitute Jake Browne picked up the ball 30 yards from goal and skipped past a challenge before driving a low shot from range into the bottom left corner to give his team a cushion.

Ryan McNulty made a great save to deny Keenan from adding a third as Rangers looked more likely of the teams to score again.

However, Gavin Greene did go close to clawing one back ten minutes from time when his strike from outside the box looked to be heading for the top corner, but he was denied by a fine save from goalkeeper Luke Johnston.

Enniskillen Rangers Michael Kerr said after the game: “The bottom line was the three points and a clean sheet, you’d take that any week. Overall, the performance was good, we could have had another goal or two in the game apart from their ‘keeper Dusty making a few good saves, but, at the same time, we hit the crossbar at 0-0, they went up the other end and hit the post, if that goes in, it’s a different game.

“We move on to Mountjoy now and it’s another game we will be looking for three points in.”