Saints 3 Cowdenbeath 1
Team:
Main,Sylla,Blaster,Weir,Dods,Dasovic,Tommy,Parker,Jones, O'Neill,Hartley
Subs: Robertson,Russell,Pope,Crozier,McCulloch
I should probably just use the Tannadice report from last Saturday with the scorer names changed. Yet again we put on an entertaining first half, got into a commanding lead and proceeded to give the impression of being ready to chuck it all away in the second-half. This team is entertaining yes, but it badly needs to learn to keep up the pressure for the whole 90 minutes and to stop letting the opposition back into the game.
The same team started as last weekend with the only change being Pope returning to action, albeit on the subs bench.
From the start we were in control with some nice passing and JR and MoMo causing all sorts of problems down the right. And with the game only 6 minutes old we were in the lead. Tommy broke down the left, knocked the ball back to O'Neill in the centre and his square ball along the edge of the box was met by the incoming JR who sent a beautiful low angled drive past John "Where's the camera?" Martin (and yes he is as ugly as ever). Saints kept up the pressure and Tommy and Kiegan both saw shots saved before Jones got in on the act only to see Martin start to impersonate a goalkeeper (about the first time he's managed that at McD) and save some shots. MoMo and Dasovic also had a go with a wonderful 1-2 only for Nick to see his half-volley saved.
Cowdenbeath weren't even in the game with the Saints defence mopping up any attacks with ease, with O'Neill and Dasovic in midfield running the show. The Blue Brazil's efforts weren't helped when their star player Graeme Brown (who looked fairly useful) had to limp off. And when I say that the Beath physio was of the female variety then you can probably guess the degree of whistling and entertainment given when she took the field.
Back in the action and Saints made it 2-0 when JR on the right played the ball onto an overlapping MoMo. His cross went into the 6-yard box, was missed / sclaffed by Kiegan but met by Dasovic's head to make it 2-0 and only 20 minutes gone. The third came 5 minutes later when Kiegan was fouled 20 yards out. O'Neill tapped the free-kick, JR dummied it and in came Blaster for a low drive into the net. St. Sandy took off Weir and put on the Pope as Saints cruised on. Dasovic dropped back to defence and it began to go a bit pear-shaped...again.
First of all Dasovic is no centre-half. Secondly Mr McBride had better extract his prima donna finger out of his arse and act like a team player. He's had a couple of good games at the start of the season and maybe he was too eager to get on the scoresheet tonight but too often he ran with the ball at defenders and lost possession when there were plenty of passing opportunities available. Anyway rant over.
The rest of the first half was incident free but the reshaped Saints defence looked very shaky with Cowdenbeath missing a sitter and hitting the post. Main was on form though and MoMo managed a couple of good clearances (and a booking) to keep it 3-0 at half-time.
The second-half was just dire. They scored on the hour with a well-worked goal which probably owed more than a bit to some poor defending from Dods and Bollan. The also had a guy taken off with what looked like a broken leg after a clash with JR (accidental).
St. Sandy put on McCulloch for O'Neill (another good shift from him) and Russell for Parker late on, and it was only when the latter change was made that the midfield began to assert itself again. Discipline was still a problem though, (combined with a card-happy ref) and Bollan, Dods and McCulloch all managed to pick up bookings.
Still a lazy performance didn't stop us winning comfortably in the end. MoM for me was JR - an excellent winger on the right and linking up with MoMo like they've played together for years. Unfortunately on the other side of the park there is a definite lack of teamwork between Bollan and Tommy with the latter rarely if ever receiving a pass from Blaster. It's got the making of the Preston/Jenko stuff all over again and it's definitely something we can do without.
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