Saints 1 Dundee Utd Cheats 1
Team ::
Main,McQuillan,Davison,Attila,Weir,Griffin,Scott,Tosh,Ferguson, Georgio,Jenko
Subs :: Preston,Grant,O'Halloran
Well we can't say we hadn't been warned - Luggy had made it clear in all the pre-match hype that Saints would find this a harder test than last year and would have to cope with the bigger stage. With the BBC radio guys doing the commentating (and providing some wonderful media falsehoods), and Gerry finally managing to locate Perth in his road atlas to bring the STV cameras to town, the Premier roadshow got underway.
Although not full, there was a great atmosphere at McD with the new Geoff Brown-sponsored scoreboard one of the new attractions (although it still doesn't show the time or teams and suffered from power loss several times). There was the fun of the championship flag taking a lap of honour (skipping out the Arab tink supporters), before being raised to herald the return to the Premier - even the announcer got into the act with Saints coming out to 'Its good to be back !!!'.
Unfortunately the fun atmosphere was ruined in 12 mins when Olafsson (one of Tommy the Gerbils Viking Arabs) had room to send a header which rebounded off the post to allow him to get the rebound with Saints defence and Main all over the place. Saints were under severe pressure for most of the first half with the jitters obvious for us all. The makeshift appearance of the midfield was made worse by their inability to support either defence or attack when the latter was under pressure. Up front Georgio ran his arse off but Fergie, despite the hype from El Luggino and his pre-season form looks to have lost any ability. There were too many loose balls between him and Georgio and for a tall striker his heading ability now seems to have been inherited from Vinny Arkins.
Utd had by far the better chances in the first half although the home defence appeared to pick up their game after losing the goal. Danny and Weir had good games in central defence and Callum Davison was easily the better of Winters. However with the midfield non-existent for the most part, the Scumdee gits had plenty of room to try long-range efforts and a few times Main had to look sharp to keep the score to 0-1. Of course in the tradition of these games, referee Fleming was fucking atrocious - suffice to say that Premier standards are worse than the 1st Division.
Towards the end of the first half Saints began to come into the game more with Malpas and McKimmie in defence looking suspect as Tosh and McQ ran the right wing. However too frequently the ball was slow into the box or there was no-one there - although Tosh had a good shot on target and Fergie missed a sitter (which IMHO Roddy would have buried).
The second half started much the same way but Saints began to exert more pressure with the backs starting to push forward and Georgio managing to get into the box more, with the Utd defence panicking several times or resorting to fouling (Bowman on Davison was a cracker) which meant the ref wouldn't play advantage and so break up the momentum of the attack.
Fergie was replaced by Rod the God on the 55 minute mark and immediately the 2 Saints strikers formed an understanding with short passes and flicks starting to find the intended target. However Utd had the best chance so far to make it 2-0 on the hour mark when a cross from the right went across an open goal. Saints pushed forward though and won a free-kick on the edge of Utds box. The previously shit Jenko took the kick and sent a cross over for Attila to shoot home from the far post to make it 1-1.
From then on Saints had the better chances with Scott, Tosh, Jenko and Georgio all coming close. At the other end Main had a couple of panicky moments but held on for the draw. 2 bookings for Saints - Dino for an innocuous challenge on Pressley (but which earned an Oscar from the ex-Hun), and McQuillan for dissent when a corner was awarded to the tinks (and IMHO Luggy should fine him heavily, no matter how good his case was). Saints brought on O'Halloran with 2 mins to go for Georgio but he made little impact.
Overall it was a cracking game for the neutral fan (although no doubt Gerry will think otherwise). However the pace was a lot faster than the 1st Division and Saints have a lot of work to do to pick up the pace for the rest of what promises to be a long season.