Temple Of Saints - Another 3 points...

Scottish Premier League - 23/09/2000

Paisley Junkies 0 Saints 1 League Table Here

Team: Main,Sylla,Blaster,Weir,Kernaghan,Dasovic,Russell,Kane,Jones, Parker,Hartley
Subs: Cuthbert,Dods,Pope,Tommy,McCulloch

Well we did pick up our second win of the season, we've only lost one game so far and Nosey showed that he more than deserves a call-up to the U-21s. But my God did we grind the result out in the second-half and if St. Midden hadn't been so rubbish in front of goal we'd have been lucky to scrape the draw.

A healthy travelling support made the trip to sunny Paisley to watch a couple of Pandas put on some decent mascot entertainment before kick-off (well it was funnier than watching Sammy at East End Park). St. Sandy shuffled the side again with Tommy dropping to the bench and Russell taking his place on the left wing, Parker joining Goalden Graeme up front and Weir returning to central defence.

We made an OK start with St. Midden looking a bit slower on the ball as if they are still adapting to the pace of the SPL - mind you it might just have been because they were waiting on Tommy Turner getting his zimmer frame working or else Quitongo getting up off his belly after practicing his diving every couple of minutes - yup nice to see that some things haven't changed. Saints had some comic moments of their own though - a MoMo run up the right wing saw the cult hero outpace the home defence and cut into the box. With the Saints fans waiting on the perfect cross and goal MoMo proceeded to trip over the ball and send it wide.

Still we were putting some pressure on and Goalden almost put us in front a minute later with a shot which went over the bar. The midfield was up to it's usual tricks and Kane was caught in possession in the St Midden half which led to a counter attack up the park and Jesus having to look sharp to save.

With 10 minutes gone though we got some reward for the attacking football. MoMo send a wonderful chip from the centre of midfield (yup I don't know what he was doing there either but he had just beaten a couple of opposition players) behind the St Midden defence. Nosey latched on to it, cut back across the defender and sent a lovely low drive past the onrushing Roy and into the net. Five minutes later and it should have been 2 when a Cap'n Jim header was just wide from a free-kick on the edge of the box.

The game became a bit scrappy after this with St. Midden winning more and more of the ball in midfield as Saints struggled to get any flow going into their game. The soft fouls that were constantly stopping play didn't help either although the ref seemed reluctant to take any action to prevent any further occurrences. Meanwhile the Saints defence were doing their bit with a constant stream of long balls from Kernaghan and Weir aimed straight at Jones having little or no effect as both Hartley (a man just loved by the home support for some reason) and Russell struggled to get forward. Kiegan was having some luck holding up the ball and for a change seemed more than willing to put some hefty challenges in himself to pressure the St Midden defence - something which has been lacking from his game before.

We did make some chances before the break though. A MoMo run down the right saw a lovely cross come in for Goalden to head goalwards only to see the ball cleared off the line. Even then the rebound fell to Russell only for his shot to balloon skywards. Jones had another effort when his narrow angled shot was palmed away by Roy.

Second-half started in the same way. A Jones head on was sent into the path of Parker and he managed to get into the box only to see the keeper narrow the angle and his shot go just wide.

Then some cracks began to show. First a Bollan miss saw the Paisley junkies get possession and although their cross eventually ended up going wide, both Cartman and Cap'n Jim spent about five minutes arguing with one another - it's that sort of loss of concentration on the game which has cost us dear in the past and the club need to get their act together on this.

As usual it was left to MoMo to turn on the skill and in 50 minutes he had a run right up the park and across the face of the goal only for his shot to go wide. Trust me if it had gone into the net it would have been a classic. And there was some comedy as well with Jose the Diver trying for a penalty only to be told to get up and get on with the game by the ref. He should have been booked though since it was about his 5th offence of the game (mind you the ref made up for it by yellow carding ZimmerFrame Turner for dissent).

Russell saw another drive go wide and Cap'n Jim a header cleared off the line in 70 minutes before Saints were forced back onto the defensive. Kernaghan picked up a yellow and was joined by Bollan as the game got scrappy (although St Midden sub McGarry was lucky to stay on the park after continually showing dissent and throwing the ball away after he was booked for kicking Blaster - even Hendrie was telling him to calm down).

St. Sandy took some action though although it seemed fairly puzzling to us as Jones was replaced by Tommy. Fair enough but Russell was still left out on the wing whilst Tommy played through the middle more. As full-time drew near both teams had good chances.

First of all Tommy cut across the middle of the park and sent a low 22-yd drive past Roy only to see it bounce back from the bottom of the post. Then at the other end amongst some comic defending by Saints a cross came to be met by an unmarked Yardley (the man to make Bollan look like Kate Moss) who managed to somehow send the ball wide from all of 2 yards out.

So we get the points but to be honest we didn't really deserve them. MoM for me was Kiegan who put in 90 minutes of constant harassment of the St Midden defence and scored a cracking goal as well. But apart from him, Weir, Main, Jones, Hartley and MoMo there's not much else to gain from this game. Dasovic looked off, Russell hasn't got the pace for a left winger, Kernaghan's distribution was diabolical as was Bollan's tackling. And as for Kane - I'm trying to be nice to the player but for all the ball-winning he did there were 3 or 4 times today he was caught in possession and his passing was at times a nightmare to watch.

We may have picked up the points but the finger still needs to be pulled out.

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