Joe Gallen was full of praise for the Under-18s, despite seeing them lose their maiden fixture in this season's Puma Youth Alliance Cup.

It's not often that a Manager will heap praise on his team following a defeat, but that was just the case on Saturday , after Swansea City triumphed with a late, late goal.

In truth, the R's completely out-played their opponents from the South West Alliance League in the first half, with Romone Rose and Matt O'Connell causing problems down the flanks and Ricky Sappleton and Danny Maguire leading the Swans' defence a merry dance in the final third.

But chances came and went, and plenty of them. Sappleton forced two good saves from the Swans' keeper; Billy Coyne and Matt O'Brien saw their efforts narrowly miss the target; and Maguire's first time effort after Sappleton had blocked the keeper's clearance flew inches over the bar.

The second half saw the same intense pressure applied by the R's, as Gallen's side pinned the Welshmen into their own half for prolonged periods of play.

But again a whole host of chances went begging. Sappleton was guilty of missing the target twice with only the keeper to beat; Harry Smart headed narrowly wide from a free-kick; and the Swans keeper pulled off a wonder save to deny the R's at the death.

Ricky Sappleton

With 10 minutes left and Rangers still pressing for the goal their performance undoubtedly deserved, they were caught with the sucker punch.

After hitting the upright just moments earlier, a Swansea player was gifted far too much time and space to slot home the all-important winning goal.

Gallen did his best to console his players after the game: "I really could not fault the players or the way we played - we just didn't score.

"In the last two games we haven't played particularly well, but took chances when they came our way and because of that we got results.

"We must have had 10 or so clear-cut goalscoring opportunities and didn't take any of them, they got one and took it.

"We had an excellent 80 minutes and they probably had a decent ten - the last ten when they hit the post and scored.

"We even had two good chances in the last minute and couldn't take either of them. I couldn't believe we could miss so many chances in one game, but if we play like that every week then there will be no complaints from me.

"After the match I told the boys not to be too disheartened, it was probably the quickest team talk I have ever done after a game, they all played so well !''

SEE ALL THE ACTION ON QPR WORLD