Temple Of Saints - A Bad Day

Scottish Premier League - 29/09/2001

Saints 2 Well 3 League Table Here

Team: Main, Dods, Forsyth, Dasovic, Weir, McCluskey, Murray, JR, Kiegan, MacDonald, Paddy
Subs Cuthbert, Marco, Pope, Wacko, Free Wullie

Oh bugger. Just as we hoped it was getting back on track and with the media turning out in their masses to laugh at a wee provincial club like us the Great God of Football (who doesn't include St Johnstone amongst the disciple obviously) decided to make us suffer all the more. Never mind building up our hopes by taking the lead, naw let's make the sparse Saints crowd (good to see all the moaners eager to return now Sandy's away) really suffer by beating them with a last minute winner and remove their keeper from the proceedings via a stretcher. Yes it was that shite a day.

Billy "That'll be me then" Kirkwood bidding to keep his 100% record as a Saints manager intact made only a couple of changes. In came Main in goals, with JR in for Pope and Kiegan for Falconer as a pacy front line became the chosen strategy. Wacko and Marco moved to the bench with Kemble and Fotheringham dropping out.

And the game started well enough. As early as the third minute we forced a couple of corners and JR sent one in which McCluskey only just headed over. The team looked up for it and were playing some neat passing football. JR, Paddy and Kiegan had one move which ended with the ball breaking loose for Dasovic only for his well-struck 20 yarder shot to be held. Then a minute later, MacDonald got onto the end of a neat through ball only to see first of all his edge of the box shot held by the keeper (at first) then when Brown fumbled it Paddy managed to blast the ball over the bar from all of 4 yards.

It was only a matter of time though and in the 12th minute we took the lead. Kiegan received the ball on the left and showed great skill in turning the Well defender and leaving him for dead on the bye line. A simple cutback into the box and from 12 yards Paddy sidefooted the ball into the net to make it 1-0. We were pressing hard now but several times Well played the offside trap to try and catch the pace of Kiegan and Pistol Pete much to the annoyance of the former (quite justified as well based on a couple of the linesman's decisions).

Then with 20 minutes gone the flow of the game was interrupted. A through ball from Well found Twaddle and Main in the Saints box racing for a 50-50 ball - in goes the Well man with the studs showing and although Flash cleared the ball when it broke off Main both players were left flat out. Five minutes, a doctor, paramedic, stretcher and splint later and Twaddle was carried off whilst Jesus went straight to the ambulance with his leg in the splint. Nicholas came on for Well and Cuthbert went in goals.

The game became a bit scrappy after that but we kept the pressure up. Pistol Pete just missed out on a JR cross (although JR struggled to get forward on the right wing much) then with 10 minutes to go before the break Paddy got the break of the ball and tried to lob the keeper. His shot was saved but the rebound fell to his feet with Brown nowhere - unfortunately he managed to miss the ball and the defence cleared. Then Paddy and Pistol Pete beat the offside trap and tried to go through but MacDonald's eventual shot was held.

With half-time approaching the Great God of Football decided to have some fun with us. First Cuthbert and Weir punched and blocked a couple of Well shots before a ball from the left found Nicholas with all the time in the world to bring the ball down and hit a 20-yard drive past Cuthbert into the net to make it 1-1.

The second-half was only a few minutes old when they nearly took the lead after beating the offside trap only for Cuthbert to block the shot neatly and the rebound to be sent wide. Passes were starting to go astray and the game was pretty dire at this stage. But with 55 minutes gone, a good Saints break on the right saw Paddy, with lots of room send the ball over to the left where Pistol Pete was unmarked. He took time to position himself then sent a sweet low left-footed drive into the net to make it 2-1.

Well were trying to get back into the game and tempers began to show with Weir clashing with Elliot first. We still had chances and were forcing corners galore. Dasovic saw a header go just wide on the hour mark then a couple of minutes later he went on a run up the right wing and sent a low cross into the box which Paddy just missed getting on the end of. Next up Lazarus sent a header wide after good work by Kiegan on the wing put a cross in. And with 68 minutes gone our best chance came to wrap up the points. A Pistol Pete chip sent Paddy through on goal. He got to the byeline and sent a narrow low shot across the goal which was just cleared off the line and broke to Murray only for him to shoot over when it might have been easier to pass to Kiegan on the right. It's these sort of chances that cost points as we were about to find out.

Free Wullie came on for the tiring MacDonald with 15 minutes to go but 3 minutes later the game was level. Saints were defending too deeply again and a misplaced Dasovic pass trying to clear the lines found a Well player who sent the ball to the left to Elliot who was totally unmarked (where were JR and McCluskey). He got into the box and sent a low shot through Cuthberts legs to make it 2-2.

You could almost see the heads go down at that. We spent the next 10 minutes trying to get back into the game with only a yellow card for Kiegan to show for it. Pope replaced Nick and both Paddy and Kiegan had shots held before him upstairs decided to put us out of our misery. A 90th minute break up the park and we were outnumbered after a loose Forsyth ball. Cuthbert save the first shot but an unmarked Nicholas followed through to put the ball into the net before doing a half-Monty on the touchline which I'm pretty sure referees consider a bookable offence. Mind you they also consider deliberate handball the same way and Nicholas got away with one of those a minute later. Not that it would have changed anything.

Nothing else happened other than Weir picked up a booking - there weren't many home fans left to see it or boo the team off the park. We did play better than in recent weeks but this was a game we needed to win. Sorry to say but it kills off Billy's chance of the job. On the plus side MoM Paddy had his best game for a while and MacDonald / Parker could be a lethal combination in the future. The midfield looked weak - Dasovic was OK but we badly missed the sort of creativity MoMo provided. The defence didn't look too bad - losing Main was a big blow though.

Ten days till the next game - a new manager, new ideas and hopefully a bit of luck.

This Match Report is copyright Temple Of Saints - not to be reused without permission. Contact webmaster@grange.demon.co.uk.

Remember to vote on todays ref Hugh Dallas send marks out of 10 to refvote@grange.demon.co.uk or just select a rating and press the button below ::

Saints Index Fixtures Index Grange Index

Any problems / comments mail webmaster@grange.demon.co.uk