Temple Of Saints - Shapeless Shite

Scottish Premier League - 17/03/2001

St Mirren 1 Saints 0 League Table Here

Team: Main,McCluskey,Forsyth,Weir,Kernaghan,Dasovic,Crozier,O'Neill, Kiegan,JR,Frail .
Subs: Cuthbert,Tommy,McCulloch,Ferry,McClune

So where do we go from here? We've been asking for ages for the kids to be given their chance and to be fair to the manager Forsyth and Crozier kept their place in the side and McCulloch and new kid Mark Ferry both came on in the second-half. But by Christ we were shite. Admittedly the Paisley junkies are desperately fighting to prevent relegation but Saints today were a team bereft of ideas for the most part and for the majority of the time it was like 11 individuals on the park as opposed to a team.

With Le Mo (boy did we miss him) and Kane suspended, O'Neill and JR were promoted from the bench in an otherwise unchanged side meaning JR became the latest to partner Kiegan up front. Marco McCulloch recovered from flu to join the other subs whilst Mark Ferry became the latest to be promoted from the U-18 side.

From the start though, St. Midden pressed us back and the first five minutes saw them get a couple of shots on goal. Both went wide but it was more than a bit worrying to see how easily the three centre-backs of Weir, Father Dougal and McCluskey were exposed. Even up front we didn't look that lively with Dasovic and O'Neill off the pace and JR proving he's a winger not a striker whilst Kiegan has begun to show some of the more selfish tendencies which mean IMHO that he's not yet ready to lead the line on his own. He had a good turn and snap shot in the 4th minute though which went over the bar.

Then on the quarter-hour mark a good Parker run saw him cut the ball back into the box for JR. With his back to goal, he turned and was unlucky to see his shot go wide. Yet again though the Saints attackers were being well closed down and with Stuart Dougal living up to his usual Saintee-hating reputation, it was obvious we were going to be in for a rough time. So why the hell did we persist in trying to play long balls to the forwards when it was obvious that any 50-50 chance would end up with the home side (usually with a free kick).

The youngsters from Wednesday night were doing OK with Crozier on the right getting a lot more room to move and show a bit of speed. On the other flank, Ross Forsyth looks to be coming on in leaps and bounds playing some nice confident balls and looking more experienced that his age suggests.

With 25 minutes gone, Kiegan had a good break up the park, but instead of passing to Crozier or Hartley he decided to try and go it himself against 3 defenders. Of course he lost the ball, the junkies broke up the park and with Saints slow to cover the opposition it was 3 passes across the park to find McGarry in plenty of space and with lots of time to shoot the ball low past Main. Cue for the Love St PA to play the theme from "Tales of the Unexpected". Must have been aimed at the home fans then.....

That was also the cue for the Saints team to try some sort of fight back - as usual it looked like a lot of heads went down but the half-hour saw us unlucky not to draw level. An O'Neill free-kick on the right touchline after Frail had been fouled just outside the box, was played into the near post where JR got a flick in. The ball was cleared off the line only to land at Kernaghan's feet. Roy blocked his shot and Forsyths header was also blocked before the ball was cleared.

Saints had little in the way of chances for the rest of the half though. A McCluskey shot went well over, just before the defender was booked for a needless foul. At the other end Main did well to tip a long cross clear as Saints' defence looked to be in tatters.

Half-time saw the crap O'Neill replaced by Tommy. And although we all know the player isn't having the best of times it was soooo good to hear the welcome he got on the park from some of the so-called supporters in the away end. And they wonder why the players are finding it hard to get motivated?

Little happened in the early stages with Saints keeping the Buddies pinned into their own half but at the same time showing all the threat of a Vinny Arkins header. JR picked up a booking for a nothing foul (strange how Dougal let McGarry escape a similar offence in the first half though), and on the hour mark he managed a shot on target from a free-kick on the edge of the box. Just after that Mark Ferry made his debut replacing Frail as Saints moved to a 3-5-2 with Tommy and Kiegan up front and JR on the right wing where to be fair he began to have some effect.

The Buddies put on Quitongo who managed to wait for all of 5 minutes before doing his Darren Jackson impression in the box with a dive so blatant even Dougal wouldn't give the penalty. Not that the wee diver got booked or anything - that would be far too much like common sense.

With 20 minutes left Saints began to make some chances. JR went on a great run up the right and managed to get a decent shot in which went just over. Then a few minutes later, "Flash" Forsyth won the ball on the left and played it to Tommy in the middle who passed to JR on the right only for the winger to put in what in the end was a fairly weak shot.

Marco McCulloch came on for Crozier to move to the left wing. With ten minutes left we had a pretty good claim for a penalty. Kernaghan played a neat long ball to JR who headed the ball into the box for Kiegan only for the Saints striker to be bundled to the ground. Then at the other end we nearly performed the funniest Comic Relief moment of the weekend. An innocuous passback from McCluskey to Main saw the keeper fail to control the ball properly. With McGarry closing in he managed to kick the ball to the edge of the box only to find Tubs Yardley. Luckily it took long enough for the message to travel to the Paisley Thickos brain cell, that by the time he kicked the ball towards goal Main was able to cover the shot.

That was it really - we pressed towards the end and actually played some not bad passing (yup that magic word) football. Last chance fell to Tommy - a JR free-kick on the edge of the box slipped to him only for his low shot to be saved by Roy. That sort of day really.

MoM for me was JR just ahead of Forsyth. The rest of the side wasn't a disaster and it's difficult to pick out any real sinner from it all - the defence was fairly poor and O'Neill shouldn't be near the first team again. Crozier looked good, McCulloch OK and Mark Ferry struggled but managed to at least show some fight. But there is a real problem up front with Kiegan being asked to do too much and being selfish when he does have the ball. Nathan and Le Mo are badly missed just now.

So it's goodbye to the top six chance....maybe now we'll relax enough to play some entertaining football?

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