I was unable to get to this game so here is a match report from the extcellent qprnet website which can be seen at http://www.qprnet.com

Match Report By Simon Skinner

With Clarke Carlisle serving a one-match ban for picking up five yellows Holloway was forced to change the side. Day remained in goal and Matthew Rose dropped into the back four to team up with Forbes, Shittu and Padula. Palmer came into midfield alongside Marney, Bircham and Rowlands with Furlong and Gallen continuing up front. Tony Thorpe made a welcome return to the bench following injury.

Rangers made a shaky start with Bournemouth forcing a succession of early corners, most of which were gifted by poor clearances. There seemed to be a definite hangover from Tuesday night and they needed to snap out of it quickly. It seemed to take an age for Rangers to try their luck and the chance fell to Palmer who shot well wide from just outside the box.

Bournemouth should have opened the scoring soon after when man mountain Steve Fletcher shot wide from bang in front. Any sort of shot on target would probably have beaten Day as he was so close but Rangers rode their luck. Rangers' most potent threat seemed to be Bircham and he hammered a shot straight into the arms of Neil Moss in the Cherries goal. He seemed to be finding space to follow up on the knockdowns of Gallen and Furlong. He had little choice but to get forward as Palmer's distinct lack of mobility in the middle of the park was being alarmingly highlighted. The skipper managed to incur the wrath of wretched referee Scott Mathieson and earn himself a caution.

Rose came within a whisker of opening the scoring as the half time break approached. Following the play from centre half he found himself thirty yards from goal and noticed that the keeper was expecting the cross. Instead he hammered the ball goalward and Moss had to be at his best to tip the ball over the top.

It was soon Day's turn to show his skills as he saved twice from Warren Feeney in quick succession.

The second half started with both sides going close to taking the lead. Firstly the dangerous Feeney was denied by Rose and at the other end Rowlands latched onto a wild shot from Bircham but could not find a way past Moss. There seemed little danger to the Rangers goal though as Bournemouth, for all the good movement of Feeney and brawn of Fletcher, were struggling to create anything clear cut in the second period.

That was until Rangers intervened with some shocking defending. The build up to the goal was farcical. Firstly the linesman awarded Bournemouth a throw when the ball had clearly sailed straight into touch and then moments later infuriated the Rangers players and fans by doing the same again. Whether they had momentarily lost their concentration I don't know but when Fletcher tried to find Feeney with a hopeful ball their seemed little danger. Rose and Shittu then decided that they would leave it for each other and Feeney nipped in to beat the exposed Day with a simple finish. It was defensive suicide and Holloway responded by moving Forbes to centre back and Rose to right back in the hope that the pace of Forbes would cover any more potential howlers.

Tony Thorpe replaced Marney and all of a sudden, with Gallen in midfield, Rangers started to play. The movement was sharp and some crisp inter-passing left Bournemouth chasing shadows. Bircham went close with a low shot after a corner and Furlong then hammered a freekick well wide of the target from about thirty yards.

Furlong coughed up an even better chance soon after following some excellent work from Thorpe. The fit again hitman worked space on the right and cut a cross back from the by-line into the path of Furs. On his right foot he sent the ball wide without troubling the keeper. Earlier in the season he would have tucked this away, no question, but he seems to have lost something with this latest injury. I cant quite put my finger on it but he doesn't seem as physical as he was and any pace that he had left seems to be on the wane.

Rangers finally managed to get the ball into the net with just over ten minutes remaining only to see it ruled out for offside. Shittu latched onto a cross from the left and thumped a header past Neil Moss only to see the flag go up. You sensed that there wouldn't be much more left in the game for Rangers as we had looked unlikely to score for most of the afternoon despite some incessant pressure.

Gallen thought he had scored when his close range shot was hacked off of the line and Moss was once again on hand to deny Rangers when Bircham again fired a shot at goal only for the big keeper to intervene.

The last few minutes seemed to consist of hopeful punts upfield and Bournemouth attempting to use up as much time as the weak official would let them and it worked. The whistle went and the reaction of the Bournemouth players and fans showed just how much a win against Rangers means to teams in this division.

We were unlucky not to take anything from this game, on another day it would have been at least a draw as apart from the second half howler Bournemouth didn't carry a massive goal threat. When this is combined with some poor finishing from Rangers and a decent display by Neil Moss the outcome was not too much of a surprise.

The team as a whole looked unbalanced and there was an alarming lack of pace in the side. Without McLeod there is nobody that can inject that lightening burst to carry the play away from the opposition and even on his most quiet of days he is always something for opposing defenders to think about. We need him back quickly and Olly must make it a priority to get some left sided cover in at the club as the first team squad contains three left footed players only, and one of them is Culkin!

It is back to the training ground to reflect on a poor week for Olly and his boys now and to prepare for another tough clash at Chesterfield next week. The Spireites have been rolling over for all and sundry recently so you can almost guarantee that they will play like Brazil when we turn up.

A win is a must; a draw at this stage is really not good enough as we don't want to allow a rampant Bristol City side the chance to close the gap any further. Lets hope that we get some people fit as well as looking at the loan market for some left sided cover in the week and lets go to Saltergate and get this week out of our systems.