Sheffield Wednesday 1 QPR 1: Jamie Mackie goal earns Championship draw

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Tom Doyle12 August 2017

QPR did enough to earn a hard-fought 1-1 draw against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough on Saturday.

Jamie Mackie's opening goal for QPR was cancelled out by Sam Winnall early in the second half.

The first real chance of the game fell to Daniel Pudil for Wednesday in the 12th minute, when Barry Bannan whipped in an inviting in-swinging delivery which landed straight onto the head of Pudil, but he could not direct his header on target.

Wednesday squandered another good chance to take the lead in the18th minute when Gary Hooper's delivery from the right landed onto the head of his strike partner Jordan Rhodes whose header was well held by Alex Smithies.

The opening goal came in the 22nd minute for QPR as Mackie was played in on goal in the left channel by Luke Freeman, Mackie coolly slotting the ball underneath an on charging Keiren Westwood to give the away side the lead.

Wednesday seemed to lack any cutting edge during the the first 45 minutes. Losing captain Glenn Loovens and Sam Hutchinson to first half injuries certainly had an effect, with several times in the first half getting into good positions but the final pass was always of poor quality.

However, Wednesday finally found the right pass in the 43rd minute with Adam Reach pulling the back onto the penalty spot only for substitute Winnall to slice his shot harmlessly wide of the goal, adding to the growing frustration among the home supporters.

The Owls got their Championship campaign up and running in the 48th minute as Bannan crossed from the left, QPR captain Nedum Onuoha missed his chance to clear, leaving Winnall free at the back post to smash home an equaliser.

That goal seemed to ignite the hosts into action as a chance to take the lead quickly followed. Bannan again found space inside the QPR box on the left, he picked out Winnall once again at the far post, who should have done better with the whole of the goal to aim at.

From then on, however, the second half lacked quality from both sides. Wednesday consistently resorted to long diagonals, which were comfortably defended by the QPR back-four, and the London side lacked cutting edge on the counter.

QPR should have won it in the 84th minute when front man Connor Washington raced towards goal from the right, then unselfishly squared the ball to substitute Kazenga LuaLua, who shot wide from inside the box.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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