Tranmere Rovers hosted Morecambe at Prenton Park tonight with a 6pm kick-off in the first leg of a League Two Play-Off semi final.
Rovers, under the caretaker charge of Ian Dawes and Andy Parkinson, finished the season in 7th place in League Two scraping a place in the Play-Offs for the fourth time in five seasons.
Morecambe missed out on automatic promotion on the final day of the season and finished in 4th place, their joint-highest EFL finish.
Match Report – League 2 – Tranmere Rovers 0, Morecambe 0
Despite Tranmere controlling the first half, with them having nearly 80% possession in the first 45, it wasn’t to be their night tonight at Prenton Park with Morecambe winning the first leg on the play-off semi-final 2-1.
Morecambe took the lead in the 15th minute through a Nathaniel Knight-Percival goal from a Liam McAlinden cross.
They held on to their lead for just four minutes, when Tranmere deservedly levelled through a powerful header from skipper Peter Clarke from a Liam Ridehalgh cross, that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
But, the home fans were silenced, when during added time at the end of the first half, Morecambe’s McAlinden tapped in a cross from Cole Stockton to give them the one-goal advantage that they held on to for the rest of the match.
Tranmere struggled to match the same intensity from the first half, during the remainder of the game. However, there were a couple of notable chances for the home side, when Rovers nearly bagged an equaliser from a corner which was well saved and directed behind and near the end, a deep cross by Spearing nearly found Nugent perfectly but he lost his balance and nothing came of it.
Morecambe will take a one-goal lead to Globe Arena as these sides battle again in the second leg on Sunday for a 12:30 kick off.
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Tap or click to follow birkenhead.news on Twitter Matt Hibbert’s thoughts…
No idea how we lost that game, 1st half was back to our best, the intensity, the energy, the high tempo, still everything to play for on Sunday, up the Tranmere!
Matt Hibbert – Presenter, This is Tranmere Podcast
Matt Hibbert, Paul Harper and Jake Keogh present the “This is Tranmere” podcast available on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts & Spotify with post-match reaction for every Tranmere game. #TRFC #SWA
These are the links to the Tranmere v Morecambe podcast:
Soundcloud
Apple podcasts
Spotify
These fans express their opinion on today’s game…
Tranmere Rovers
13 Joe Murphy
2 Lee O’Connor
3 Liam Ridehalgh
26 Peter Clarke (C)
6 Emmanuel Monthe
8 Jay Spearing
7 Kieron Morris
19 Liam Feeney
17 Otis Khan
11 Corey Taylor
9 James Vaughan
Substitutes
30 Ben Jones
18 Calum MacDonald
4 Sid Nelson
22 Paul Lewis
35 Danny Lloyd
28 David Nugent
14 Kaiyne Woolery
Manager
Ian Dawes and Andy Parkinson
Referee
Darren Drysdale
Morecambe
1 Kyle Letheren
21 Ryan Cooney
3 Stephen Hendrie
5 Sam Lavelle (C)
4 Nathaniel Knight-Percival
24 Yann Songo’o
19 Liam McAlinden
10 Aaron Wildig
8 Toumani Diagouraga
11 Carlos Mendes Gomes
9 Cole Stockton
Substitutes
12 Mark Halstead
6 Harry Davis
22 Liam Gibson
14 Alex Kenyon
15 Brad Lyons
18 Ben Pringle
17 A-Jay Leitch-Smith
Manager
Derek Adams
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