Broken legs have unfortunately been part of the furniture at Scunthorpe United over then past few years, and just seven minutes into the game the first broken leg of the season predictably occured at Glanford Park.
The only difference this time round was that the player who sufffered the injury was not wearing white, claret and blue but red. And that's almost certainly midfielder Waynne Philips season over.
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A further seven minutes down the line and the Welshmen were in trouble when they failed to defend their lines. Goalkeeper Kristian Rogers was stranded as Alex Calvo-Garcia headed home neatly from a deep cross by Peter Beagrie on the left. Beags was running the visitors ragged, as the visitors struggled to get into the game.
Scunthorpe almost added to their score in the 17th minute, new boy Paul Wheatcroft heading wide from Nathan Stanton's cross, Mark Jackson also saw his header fly over after connecting with an Andy Dawson, yes Andy Dawson (still with us, just). The only attempt of note for the visitors saw Andy Morrell drift a shot wide of Tom Evans' left hand post.
United maintained their pressure and Rogers was forced to pull off a brilliant one-handed save from a Wheatcroft volley which had been headed down by James Cotterill following yet another cross from Beagrie. Lee Trundle managed to get in a left-foot shot which failed to trouble Evans and shortly afterwards the keeper dealt similarly with a point-blank shot from Jim Whitley.
Almost on the interval whistle, Wrexham had the oppurtunity to draw level when Morrell saw one shot blocked and a second flashed wide. Wrexham, encouraged by almost 700 travelling fans (but not the 1500 some of their fans had claimed), began to show more urgency with Morrell's speed causing trouble in the home defence. Evans was called into action to save from Lee Jones and Beagrie found himself defending deep to stop Morrell.
As I said, today saw the old cliche `it's a game of two halves` played out in near perfect fashion. In the first half the Iron could have scored three.
A sweeping move by United, initiated by Stanton from the back ended with the now familiar sight of the former England schoolboy failing to get any strength or accuracy in his shot after taking the ball past the entire opposition side and playing a one-two. One day though, he'll score a wonder goal in that fashion.
Wrexham's deserved an equaliser, and it came came in the 65th minute. Carlos Edwards knocked the ball in from the right, it was delivered back into the six yard box where Morrell nipped in to force home from close range.