RANGERS' ground held up well enough following yet more torrential rain to allow their first outing since the end of December.

The reserves have been sidelined for three weeks mainly down to the weather around the Forest and that rustiness showed when they went behind after just two minutes.

But they kept their composure and were rewarded with a second-half equaliser in a game which Rangers manager Adrian Cole described as "a great advert for this league".

Cole also praised Coleford-based ref Steve Forsyth for "playing to the conditions".

He said: "It was cold, wet and muddy and I thought the ref had a very good game."

Ruardean had a couple of opportunities to draw level in the first half but the visitors, who are second in the division, kept them at bay.

Three substitutions midway through the second half were key to the outcome with one of them, Daniel Matthews scoring with his first touch.

Ruardean have developed a strong youth section with youngsters stepping up to the senior sides and acquitting themselves well.

While they managed to play 90 minutes at the Recreation Ground, many other fixtures were called off.

Among the casualties was Monmouth Town's Welsh Cup fourth round tie with Porthmadog which was washed out.

The Kingfishers were hoping for one of their biggest crowds in years for the game which was to have been televised by Welsh fourth channel S4C.

The game has been rescheduled for this Saturday (February 8) at 2pm and if it does not go ahead Town could be forced to make the long trip to north-west Wales.

The winners will face either Welsh Premier outfit Newtown or Lock Stock Alliance team Holywell in the quarter final.

Town chairman Lee Robson said: "I was desperately disappointed that the game was postponed last Saturday but not surprised. We really need it to happen this week however as the FAW rules say if there are two postponements we then have to switch the fixture. The loss of home advantage is bad enough but I was hoping for large crowd to get behind us. Wherever we end playing it'll be great game."

•Apologies to Milkwall Reserves and Howle Hill. We swapped the captions on the team pictures on the sports page last week.