James Norwood’s injury time winner secured Tranmere’s first win in four games and in the process eased some of the pressure on manager Mickey Mellon, writes Machel St Patrick Hewitt.

Mellon was pleased with the win “I’m delighted that we scored when we did, we set out to dig in and give nothing away and rely on our quality upfront to put Bromley under pressure. It’s a great goal from Norwood and now we need to kick on from this“.

Perhaps reflecting the fortunes of Tranmere’s season so far the game was bereft of genuine goal scoring opportunities as Tranmere failed to build real attacking fluency. On the flip side they were excellent in defence and blunted the majority of Bromley’s attacks.

The first half was a scrappy affair that took a long time to get going. Although Tranmere dominated possession they failed to regularly threaten the Bromley goal.

Adam Buxton tested David Gregory from distance mid-way through the first half whilst George Porter had Bromley’s best opportunity volleying into the side netting from a Frankie Sutherland free kick.

Connor Jennings produced the only real shot in anger in the first 45 minutes. A great one-two between Norwood and Norburn led to the latter playing in Jennings but Gregory turned the effort away.

The second half saw Bromley come out of the traps much stronger and take the game to Tranmere.

Louis Dennis produced some fine trickery slaloming past two defenders before stinging Scott Davies’ palms with a fierce effort.

Tranmere briefly rallied when James Alabi let fly from distance but his effort cleared the crossbar.

Mitch Duggan should have headed Tranmere in front in the 72nd minute when he capitalised on a calamitous clearance from Tyrone Sterling inside the penalty area.

Sterling failed to clear his lines succeeding only in ballooning his clearance high in the air, however with Gregory stranded Duggan headed the ball wide of the goal.

Three minutes from time Bromley threatened to win the game but Scott Davies double save denied them.

First Sutherland hit a fierce drive from distance that Davies did well to parry before recovering to save Brett Williams’ follow up with his feet.

The winner when it came was the first real piece of quality in the game, Norwood anticipated a through ball in the penalty area that evaded Alabi and with a lot to do hit an excellent shot across Gregory that found the net via the inside of the far post.

Reflecting on the match Bromley manager Neil Smith was disappointed with the nature of the defeat rueing what he called Bromley’s only defensive lapse of the game “I’m really disappointed with the result, I felt neither side deserved to win and 0-0 would have been a fair result”