East Fife 2 Saints 2
Team :: Main,McQuillan,Preston,Attila,Weir,Griffin,Dasovic,ONeil,Grant,Georgio,
Tosh
Subs : Donaldson,Fergie,Jenko
God but we dont have believe in making it difficult for ourselves these days. With Phizzy out with hamstring trouble, Saints really struggled to get the draw against a Fife team that hadnt gained a league point since last October. Things seemed to start reasonably well for us with the team looking both relaxed and confident during their warm-up in front of a large travelling support.
The game started evenly with Saints looking slightly jaded and tired after the weekends action. The heavy pitchy did nothing to help matters tho. For the first 10 minutes or so it looked like the game would go to form (ie Saints gubbing them) with Georgio and Tosh both coming close and the E Fife defence and stand-in goalie looking decidedly shaky. However it became the same old story with too many passes going astray in midfield and too much reliance being put on Georgio who apart from looking like he didnt really care suffered from the attentions of 2-3 defenders all the time.
Still Saints managed to score first after about 20 mins when a good passing move from defence via Georgio and Tosh found Attila who ran upfield, shrugged off a defender and chipped the ball home. The lead was only to last a few minutes tho before E Fife cashed in on a series of bad defensive blunders by Saints to equalise. However, just as with the Beanos game a week ago Saints were ahead once more within 30 secs of the restart when a cross from Tosh was met by Georgio who lobbed the goalie to make it 2-1. Saints had several more chances after that with a clearance off the line and some good saves to show for their efforts. But it was the Fifer who equalised again with a good break and the expected series of Saints errors letting them score.
The second half was all Saints but the discipline which we sorely needed was missing after 10 mins of the restart. There was a lot of pressure but too many passes went astray and tackles merely resulted in a punt clearance which fell to an opposition player. Dasovic and Attila had dreadful games with the former playing his worst since joining the Saints.
Up front Roddy had a couple of chances but to be honest didnt look fit at all. Tosh an O'Neil struggled to get any sort of rhythm going and were eventually replaced by Jenko and Fergie. Jenko had a couple of efforts and a few corners. Fergie was just crap. IMHO hes one for the off at the end of the season. As for Georgio he might as well have stayed at home - this was one of his most lacklustre performances Ive seen from him and it shows just how much the team have depended on him and Roddy.
Defensively we were never really challenged but again suffered from losing bad goals. Preston was replaced by Davison who looked sharper, and Danny and Weir had reasonable games. Main made a few good saves to keep Saints in it but there must be real questions about McQ - almost every team now puts most pressure on his position. He still tends to drift into the middle of the park when defending allowing far too much room on the wing to the opposition.
So a shite performance but at least we got a point. There were bookings for
Attila and Davison - both pretty soft. Dino didnt bother with the Keevins
celebrations tonight - he was heading over but obviously realised that the
support werent too chuffed - the boos and cries of "Fuck Off Dino"
probably summed it up.