Rangers Under-18's won the second match of the season away at Barnet on Saturday lunchtime, but Manager Steve Brown admitted afterwards that the display wouldn't have won any awards for technical merit.

"Sometimes you have to win ugly," he told www.qpr.co.uk.

"That's exactly what we did. Everything about the game wasn't pretty, but we stuck at it and in the end got a few decisions in our favour, rode our luck and came away with a hard fought three points."

Brown's team showed just one change from the victory over Peterborough a fortnight ago, Cyrus Sylvan-Vanterpool replacing Danny Fernandez up front and the team lined up in the now familiar 4-3-3 formation.

Both teams struggled to keep possession of the ball in the opening exchanges, and Rangers' midfield three were unable to stamp their authority on the match as Brown would have liked.

Full-back Femi Ilesanmi created Rangers' first chance when he broke powerfully into the opposition area only to see his shot deflected round the post for a corner.

Shortly afterwards Christian Nanetti delivered a perfect free-kick across the six-yard box, but both Ed Harris and Antonio German failed to add the all-important touch.

Barnet managed their first effort on target after 16 minutes, but it was easily dealt with by Niki-Lee Bulmer in the Rangers goal.

At the other end of the pitch, German pulled another shot wide and Nanetti was unlucky to see his low drive partially blocked, which made the save somewhat easier for the home keeper.

The match came to life on 28 minutes when Barnet were awarded a penalty after the referee adjudged a Rangers defender to be holding an opponent in the area from a free-kick.

Despite astonishment at the decision by both sets of players, the spot-kick was duly dispatched into the corner of the net.

Undeterred, Barnet's lead lasted less than two minutes. Danny Davenport (pictured) was instrumental in setting up a move in midfield, and when the ball fell to Vanterpool, the tricky front-man jinked past two opponents before beating the keeper from close range.

Right on half-time Rangers put together their best passing move of the half which led to Terry Smith being upended just outside the penalty area. A clutch of Rangers players surrounded the ball before Max Ehmer stepped up, but his curling effort was just too high.

A strong half-time team talk from Brown and his assistant Keith Ryan buoyed the Rangers players and within 10 minutes of the restart they were ahead.

Nanetti picked the ball up wide on the right and cut infield beating three players. As the winger shaped to shoot, he was fouled 20-yards from goal and as the referee was about to blow for the offence Davenport pounced on the loose ball and curled a sublime shot into the top corner of the net.

The Barnet players protested strongly to the referee claiming they had all stopped in the belief that the foul should have been given, but the official stood by his decision and Rangers had the lead they deserved.

Five minutes later Smith wriggled round a defender on the goal-line and pulled the ball back for Vanterpool, who somehow contrived to blast the ball high and wide from six yards out.

Vanterpool then turned provider on 65 minutes; his break down the right wing led to a cross which was diverted for a corner just before Nanetti looked to get the final touch at the far post. The striker was having his best spell of the game late on and on 71 minutes he produced a stinging shot from the edge of the area which the keeper could only parry into the path of German, but he was forced wide and the chance was gone.

Rangers thought they had scored a third on 76 minutes, when German converted a free-kick but the effort was ruled out for offside.

Despite Rangers' ascendancy in the closing stages of the game, the visitors had Bulmer to thank for keeping the Barnet strikers at bay. Three times in the final ten minutes the Rangers custodian produced excellent stops to thwart the Barnet front-men.

Brown admitted it wasn't pretty, but praised the second half efforts of his players, commenting: "At half-time we told them that they could only lose the game, Barnet were not going to win it.

"For ten per-cent more effort from all of them the game would become a lot easier, but if they weren't prepared to put in the workload then Barnet would go on and nick it.

"We conceded first again and that's something we are going to have to look at, but once again we have showed the character to come back and win. Against better sides we might not be able to do that and against a better side we would have been punished for the mistakes we made, particularly in the first half.

"We've got Danny (Davenport), Terry (Smith) and Niki-Lee (Bulmer) to thank for the result - they stepped up to the mark and set the standard for everyone else."