Saints 1 Kilmarnock 1League Table Here
Team ::
Main,McQuillan,Davison,Dasovic,Kernaghan,Weir,Scott,O'Neil,Kane,Georgio,Preston
Subs :: Jenko,Tommy 'Cockles' Wright, Grant
With Luggy fielding the same side for the third successive week and 3 strikers (including new signing 31-yr old Tommy Cockles) on the bench you would have expected a fairly attacking performance from the boys. Nothing could be further from the truth and if I were unbiased I'd say that we only just deserved the draw. However with a referee performance which leant to Killie so much it made Dallas look professional Killie did not even deserve the point.
Saints started well enough with Scott and O'Neill pushing forward and Georgio doing his usual hyperactive blue-arsed fly routine. However the midfield didn't seem to be gelling together as much as expected with Kane the main culprit. Several passes either went astray or were too late to have any effect and suffice to say that Outlet had one of his more low-key performances on the left-wing.
Having said that the Kilmarnock attack did little to pose any danger for most of the first half and it was only when Saints were forced into a tactical change when Davison went off on the half-hour (Preston went to left-back and Cockles to the left-wing), that Nevin or Veraille were able to get a shot on target. As for the return of the supposedly favourite ex-Saint Paul 'The medals in the bin bag' Wright, any sympathy the Perth support had vanished when he started his diving.
The only real incident in the first half was when ONeil (booked for the softest tackle imaginable by ref Graeme Alison from Dumfries) managed a good run into the away penalty box and got a good shot in from 10yds. Cockles provided some good runs on the left wing (he seems to be very fast) and received the traditional welcome to Scottish football, the clattering tackle within a minute of coming on to the park.
The second half was fairly dull until the last 20 minutes. With Legend on for the ineffective O'Neil, Cockles had a run up the left wing. Cue for another foul by Macpherson who on noticing that Cockles was hurt decided to clutch his head in the worst piece of acting ever. Over comes the ref who decides that Wright had dived and proceeded to book him for it. With the chants of 'The referees a person who abuses himself on a frequent basis' still going round the ground, he decided to compound things by allowing a Killie goal despite the obvious foul on Main in the goalmouth scramble (which it has to be said, even some of the Killie players stopped at expecting a whistle).
Luggy threw on Jenko for Dasovic in an attempt to get back into the game, as if the players needed any more motivation. Killie though were very well-organised in defence and proceeded to play the offside trap to good effect.
Justice was done though with 10 mins to go when a loose ball was driven back in by Jenko only to apparently strike Holts arm. Against all odds, the ref actually gave the penalty (which partly made up for a handball earlier which escaped any punishment). Up stepped Shagger OBoyle to blast the ball home. There was a close scare for Saints in the last few minutes with the by now traditional panicky defending and goalline clearances but we got the draw we easily deserved. The ref did manage to intimidate us further when a Killie player dived on the attack (at least thats what was signalled by the ref) but escaped a yellow card. Nothing like consistency eh? There was another booking for Saints with Shagger getting a yellow for retaliation after Holt got off with fouling him.
MoM for me was Georgio although Main made some good saves. Overall it was a disappointing performance with too many players not on their best form and having to be carried by the rest of the team. Tommy Wright looks like he might be a good signing - hes very fast and quick to react but I still think we need the target man.
Remember to vote on todays ref Graeme Alison (Dumfries) - send marks out of 10 to refvote@grange.demon.co.uk