Stirling 1 Saints 4
Team ::
Main,ONeil,Preston,Attila,Weir,Griffin,Dasovic,Tosh,Grant,Scott,Scott
Subs
: Donaldson,Fergie,McAnespie
Twelve games unbeaten but Saints were made to battle for the points. With Jenko out for a month with his calf strain Attila came on to replace him with Kieran McAnespie taking up the spare place on the bench.
The game started badly for Saints with Stirling on the attack straight away and Prestons lack of pace being caught out again. In the middle Weir and Danny still seemed to be warming up they looked that crap and there were a few panicky clearances in the first couple of minutes. However in 5 minutes a cross from the right was missed totally by Main and despite Danny trying to clear it off the line in ended up in the net.
Saints seemed to spark into life tho and Tosh made a good run on the wing to force a corner. Preston sent an inswinger in for Attila to flick on and Jim Weir to scramble over the line for his 3rd of the season. Saints were spurred on a bit more now and only some good goalkeeping kept them from increasing their lead. The pressure paid off in 21 mins when Tosh made another good run down the right wing and sent a low ball across the goalmouth for Georgio to tap home.
Scott, Georgio and Attila all had good shots on target over the rest of the first half. Saints still struggled in midfield though with no-one looking keen to move up to support Georgio and Roddy with the end result being the same old story of the strikers having to do their own fetching and carrying.
Second half started badly for Saints with the rainy conditions not helping their style. Too much time was spent trying to do something fancy instead of just keeping the passing going. Stirling came back into the game more and more and Main was forced to make some punch clearances to keep us in the game. The midfield seemed to vanish at this point and the defence were happy to punt the ball up the park.
Saints managed to get a third after 67 minutes when Georgio picked up a loose ball from 20 yards out and sent a beautiful curving shot into the top right corner of the net to make it 3-1. Stirling sent on some subs after that but Saints were beginning to take control of the game (even if the quality was still shit).
The fourth was one of the goals of the season when in 85 mins ONeil (playing well at right-back) picked up the ball on the right, cut inside the defender and sent a rocket high into the net from about 25 yards out - easily the best goal hes scored for the boys.
Fergie came on to replace Tosh who had been booked, but he didnt do too much. Overall Saints looked 100% better than on Monday night but if we play like that at The Pit next week we'll get hammered.
Quote of the game "Thats right Phizzy do the fancy stuff and beat 3 or 4 of them before you give it away".