The Rangers failed to capitalise on opportunities during last week’s loss to Ballarat and District Soccer Association competition leader Ballarat, coach Nick van Rooy said. 

Van Rooy said the focus at training this week would be on “finishing” before taking on competition newcomer Castlemaine in Ballarat on Sunday. 

“They are an unknown. I haven’t seen them play and haven’t heard much about them,” he said. 

“It will be an unknown, they are a bit of a wildcard.

“Our finishing was what let us down last week, so we’ll be working on that at training this week.” 

Van Rooy said he felt the Rangers outplayed Ballarat and were unlucky to lose the match. 

“We just had a couple of lapses in concentration which cost us,” he said. 

“We couldn’t finish off, but we all felt we had out-played them. It was a good indicator of where we are. We have a lot of new players in the side so for them to be able to step up and be competitive against the top side in  Ballarat is exciting.”

Van Rooy said Rhys Clapp, Dechlan Picken and Martin van Rooy were standouts last weekend, with Clapp solid in the backline and van Rooy and Picken driving the ball well through the middle. 

The Rangers’ women’s side is looking to build on the momentum gained in last week’s surprising 3-3 draw against North United Black when it faces competition powerhouse Sebastopol this week. 

Women’s playing coach Raya Rantall said last week’s result was a confidence booster. 

“We were all really happy with the draw, we weren’t expecting it, North are a pretty tough team and we have a lot of new players,” she said. 

“We didn’t know how we were going to go, but we played really well. Our fitness lacked in the second half, but we never gave up which was really pleasing.”  Rantall said this week’s game against Sebastopol was going to be another tough one. 

“They’ve been going really well this season, last week they had a 8-0 win.” 

In other results, the Rangers’ division two side lost its match against Ballarat 4-1, The under 15s side lost its game against Daylesford 9-0 and the under 17s also had a loss, going down 3-0 against Ballarat.