Forest fire up at last

JANINE SELF

THEY took their time about it, but all is looking rosy in the Forest camp again.

Late goals from James Garner and Ryan Yates ended a run of three consecutive draws, two of them goalless.

How harsh for Peterborough, though, having proved themselves with stubborn resistance only to extend their away record to 10 defeats in 11 and a failure to score for more than seven hours.

Until the last 15 minutes it looked as if this match would come up blank. The rain and strong wind hardly helped either.

Then Manchester United loanee Garner (above) turned in Brennan Johnson’s cross from close range after Lewis Grabban failed to control the ball.

One became two when Garner’s corner struck Yates and the vast majority of the 28,000 fans breathed a collective sigh of relief. Forest boss Steve Cooper admitted: “That was a great win, we needed it. We didn’t play well enough in the first-half to win the game. We didn’t win the ball back when we weren’t in possession. But the second-half was really good. We were probing, we were creating chances and the aim was to create chaos and confusion with good movement.”

Posh manager Darren Ferguson said: “It’s the same old story. We have to find a way to take our chances.

“We were dominant for the first-half but you have to make something of it and we are simply not doing that.”

At least both sets of fans agreed on one thing – the performance of referee

Thomas Bramall, who angered players and staff with some controversial decisions.

He waved away Forest appeals for handball in the second-half while fourth official David Webb had both technical areas yapping in his ear.

N FOREST: Samba 7; Spence 7, Worrall 6, McKenna 6, Colback 6; Yates 7, Ojeda 6 (Cafu, 78); Johnson 8, Garner 7, Zinckernagel 7; Grabban 7 (Taylor 84). Subs not used: Horvarth, Figuiredo, Carvalho, Bong, Mighten.

PETERBOROUGH: Cornell 6; Knight 6, Edwards 6, Butler 6;

Thompson 6, Norburn 6 (Szmodics, 78) Taylor 6, Burrows 6 (Coventry, 68, 5); Grant 7; Dembele 6, Clarke-Harris 6. Subs not used: Beevers, Kent, Tomlinson, Corbett, Blackmore.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Brennan Johnson: Brought quality to the Forest attack.

REFEREE: Thomas Bramall 5.