Rather than spending a day cheering on the boys in Preston I spent yesterday afternoon in a car driving to Herne Bay for an evening with my wife's grandparents.

Listening on the radio the game sounded like it was going to be a comfortable win for Rangers until we lost BBC London and had to listen to live commentary of Ramsgate for the last ten minutes. News that Preston equalised came through about half an hour after the game finished but a point at Preston is a good result no matter how it happened.

You can get a full match report from the excellent www.qprnet.com web site.

Below are the views of two fans who made the trip from the QPR Yahoo Mailing List

Dominic Byrne

Just back from Preston. My first viewing of the Rs this season. It was a real curate's egg.

I was excited by the performance in the first 25 minutes. Good movement and a deserved lead. After that, we lost our concentration a bit. The second half was much the same.

All in all, it was a dire game really from both teams. After Rowlands went off we lost a lot of midfield fluidity and there was a fair amount of hoofing. Preston were poor and, in many respects, we were unlucky not to take the three points.

However, their goal was well-taken - it was up the other end and a bit difficult to say whether our defence was culpable.

My lasting impressions from my first viewing of Waddock's 'new' team:

1. Defensive unit - looked good and, unlike the Santos/Shittu era (much as I loved Danny), there was no panic and some evidence of feal solidity.

2. Midfield - as I say, not so good after Rowlands had to go off early on. Lomas as sub was functional rather than a real replacement. I can't say that I noticed Ward a great deal.

3. Attack - I was looking forward to seeing the Jones/Blackstock pairing. They worked tirelessly but the real inspriration came from Ainsworth who, for me, was our MOTM.

It is difficult to know what the season will hold on this showing. A point away at Preston looks good, even more so given that it was nearly three.

However, Preston were poor today and, while we should not take anything away from the Rs, we were not amazing either. All in all the actual football was mostly grim. However, these could be good foundations for a team that could grow in cohesion, confidence and performance.

Tracy Stent

Hard to argue against anything that Dominic said in his post about Preston today. Am going to try and keep this short as I want to settle down to watch Danny on motd shortly.

With an unchanged team from the one that started against Southend, we obviously got off to the perfect start with Ains putting us ahead after only 3 or 4 minutes had been played on the clock.

A nice corner (Rowlands I think) put across into the box and there was Ainsworth ready and waiting to pounce.

Sadly, only minutes later, Rowlands had to go off (wouldn't be surprised if if it were a recurrence of the injury he has been suffering with and which it was rumoured had made him 50/50 to start this afternoon), and once he went, so did any chance we had of putting decent corners over, Lee Cook's were rather poor for the rest of the game.

Lomas in place of Rowlands was ok, and Nick Ward showed that he has some nice technique, which hopefully will be enough to overcome the doubts from those fans that believe midfielders should show tackling commitment no matter what.

The first 20 minutes we did good. And I mean good. But once Preston got over the shock of conceding such an early goal they began to feel their way around us, and whilst Ward, blackstock and Rose (yes rose) all had a go at chancing their luck, it was a bit of a relief once half time came around. Especially as Nugent had missed a couple of what looked like easy chances really. Though to be fair, Paul Jones did make a very good save right at the end of the 45 mins.

Second half, and we were saying to one another it would be interesting to see how we would regroup, kind of started off as we began. Had a couple of chances (down 'our' end) but there was always the feeling that PNE could get something out of the game. Blackstock picked up a couple of knocks, and I said on around the 65/70 mins period that it was time for Waddock to ring the changes.

He left it alone though, then late on Ray Jones picked up a knock, had to come on and was replaced by Gallen. When they scored with only around 5 mins left on the clock it was a real choker from our aspect because really we should have taken all 3 points.

And that is no disrespect to PNE, who though whilst clearly having an off day, showed some nice movement when they had their momentum going. Ordinarily I would be overjoyed to be coming back from Deepdale with a point but...but... A good showing by Rs supporters today. I'm useless at guessing figures but would say there were around 700 or so there? It's a long way (500 mile round trip for us)but most there appeared to remain in good spirits.

The locals, stewards etc were all friendly, so it was a shame about the catering which was very poor indeed within the stadium, (for the away fans anyway) we were really disappointed with what we met there and I will be writing to PNE FC to register our disgruntlement. As we left the stadium we were saying that we rather think we'll be playing them again next season, as judging by how we both played this afternoon, neither team will be going anywhere (which is good in my book!).

My motm? Zesh Rehman.