Owls Fall To Scunthorpe Defeat

Wednesday's pre-season continued to falter, results-wise at least, as Alan Irvine and his men suffered defeat at Scunthorpe United this afternoon.

Jonathan Forte's 18th minute strike was enough to give the Iron victory at Glanford Park.

It was a marked improvement performance-wise from the Owls in comparison to their last two friendly outings - the 1-1 draw at Darlington and 2-1 loss at Grimsby Town.

But Irvine will be keen to get some positive results from the pre-season matches before the big kick-off in two weeks' time.

There was still no Lee Grant and Giles Coke for Wednesday, with the duo still recovering from injury, while Clinton Morrison was deemed not yet ready to get his Owls debut.

But Tommy Spurr returned and started the clash, while Irvine mixed-up the side that drew at Darlington in midweek.

This time Paul Heffernan partnered Marcus Tudgay in attack while Jermaine Johnson started in place of Chris Sedgwick and Tommy Miller started in place of youngster Liam Palmer in the heart of the Wednesday midfield.

The game started in slow fashion and it was from a loose ball that Forte lashed home from close range to give the hosts the lead 18 minutes in.

Wednesday's best first-half response came when Tudgay lashed an effort which beat Iron stopper Joe Murphy but came crashing back off the crossbar on 24 minutes.

Most of the battle was in midfield but the Iron edged it in terms of chances, Forte seeing a low effort saved by Owls stopper Richard O'Donnell before the hosts continued to have the best chances on the resumption.

Irvine made just three changes to his side in the second half but they weren't enough to change the flow of the game.

Wednesday will be looking for better fortunes when they travel to Barnsley on Tuesday night.

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