Lavery plays down promotion hopes despite another big win for Kettering Town

Nile Ranger celebrates his goal (Picture: Peter Short)Nile Ranger celebrates his goal (Picture: Peter Short)
Nile Ranger celebrates his goal (Picture: Peter Short)
Kettering Town moved into the Pitching-In Southern League Premier Central play-off positions with a thumping 4-1 win over Lowestoft, but boss Richard Lavery played down any early promotion talk despite another dominant performance.

Latimer Park continues to be the place to ;feel good’, even when the heavens open!

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Off-field activities continue to boost the coffers and rekindle partnerships with sponsors near and far.

The product on the field also continues to hold up it's end of the bargain, as the Poppies put in another comprehensive performance at home - this time against the Trawlermen of Suffolk, with the game all but over on the hour mark.

Despite the loss of talismanic midfielder Kai Fifield from the matchday squad, Kettering enjoyed near dominance of the ball from minute one.

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Devon Kelly-Evans commanded the pace of the game in another man of the match performance whilst the industrious Dan Jarvis pushed him close for the post-match bubbly.

Nile Ranger smashed a shot against the post on 16 minutes whilst the Trawlermen kept the Poppies honest with Jake Reed seeing an effort well blocked on 18 minutes.

The visitors came even closer when Flynn Clarke was left in acres of space inside the area on 25 minutes but could only slice his shot well wide.

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Kettering finally opened the scoring on 40 minutes with an own goal.

Dan Jarvis whipped a cross into the area which Travis Cole could only direct into his own net.

Luca Miller was brought into the fold during the half-time break after the Kettering management decided not to take any chances on Isiah Noel-Williams who is still coming back from injury.

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Just four minutes after the restart the lead was doubled by Miller.

Again Jarvis was the creator, this time feeding a pass towards Miller who slotted the ball low under Luke Holt's legs.

Ranger continued to make headlines for the right reasons by scoring Kettering's third on the hour mark.

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Kelly-Evans linked well with the striker who rounded Holt near the byline and sent the ball goalwards.

Jarvis finally got the goal he deserved on 78 minutes. His audacious effort from the corner of the box thundered past Holt and sent the inside of the net bulging.

With the game all but over Lavery made a number of changes with Tuesday night's game against Stamford in mind.

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This allowed Lowerstoft to grab a conciliation - new signing Jospeh Duffy coming off the bench to finish a well worked moved started on the right.

Kelly-Evans found himself one-on-one with the Lowerstoft keeper in the dying moments but saw his shot blocked.

Conceding a goal certainly irked manager Lavery despite scoring four times and creating plenty more chances.

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"The goal we should never concede - I set standards and we've conceded against the run of play and it really shouldn't happen,” said the Poppies boss.

"When you come on, you've got to give me food for thought and show me why you deserve a starting position.

"We controlled the game from start to finish but we needed that second goal - Luca's come on and done well again. He's got an eye for goal Luca.”

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Excited Poppies fans were heard singing 'we're going to win the league' despite the fact that only eight league games have been played.

Boss Lavery is happy for them to be excited but continues to play down the team's chances.

"I've said before we're a good team but we're not the final product,” he said.

“I'm not going to say we're going to win the league - any manager would love to win the league but there's a long way to go. I'm not going to get carried away"

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