Temple Of Saints - Come Back Dallas

Scottish Premier League - 09/12/98

Saints 1 Gorgie Whingers 1 League Table Here

Team :: Main,McQuillan,Bollan,Dods,Kernaghan,Dasovic,O'Neil,Scott, Kane,Roddy,Simao
Subs :: Lowndes,McMahon,Griffin,Keyring,Robertson

Well it looks like the post-final hangover has settled in at McD. Yet again Saints enjoyed the lions share of possession but failed to kill off their mediocre appointments. And believe me the win would have been more than welcome tonight to shut Whingeing Jim Jeffries and his unwashed Cogeys up. For a guy praised by St. Sandy for not using his injury list as an excuse for poor performances this season he did a helluva lot of moaning about injury problems on the radio in the post-match interviews.

Anyway enough about him, he'll no doubt get the praise he craves in the media tomorrow ('Hearts In Crisis' again?). The match saw St. Sandy field an unchanged line-up as Georgio and Il Biscotti were once more ruled out. For the Gorgie Gits all their injury worries made a miraculous recovery to play - I mean with 40+ first team squad members its not as though you're struggling to fill any positions.

Saints started well and the first 10 minutes saw several high balls sent into the box to test their international class defenders. So it was after 7 minutes that Legend flicked on a Kane cross for Father Dougal to head past their French git and make it 1-0. For a period after that Saints enjoyed a lot of pressure. McQ and Phizzy had shots whilst it seemed that any high ball into the box was being won by Dods, Legend or Father Dougal. Miguel was running well off the ball and a hack on him by Naysmith saw the first booking of the night. The Gorgie gits lost Locke after a 50-50 challenge with Bollan and their reserve Spanish waiter came on to the delight of Eusebio who suffice to say showed his Portuguese nationalistic tendencies.

With the Gits now playing 4-3-3 Saints began to lose shape and they got an equaliser on the half-hour mark. A Poor clearance by Main saw several crosses come into the box before Hamilton tapped the ball home with no defenders near him or covering either post. To say it was a soft goal to lose is like saying Fulton is slightly worse than average-looking.

Saints struggled to hold on to half-time especially as the ref decided he wanted an away win tonight and proceeded to give some very strange decisions - usually against Saints.

Second-half saw the Jambos start lively but Saints got back into the game. O'Neil was fouled right on the edge of the box which IMHO should have earned Ritchie a booking. Not to mind though as he upended Legend when the latter was on a break on the hour mark. In an incident similar to the one where Kane was sent off against the Spawn of Satan (ie last man and scoring chance) you could almost have predicted that Ritchie would escape with a yellow. Worst for Saints was seeing Legend try to place the spot kick and their French Git make a save.

Saints dominated with nothing to show for it for the rest of the match. Nathan came on for the fairly anonymous Simao whilst Keyring replaced Roddy. Nathan had a couple of shots but there never looked to be any danger of either side breaking the deadlock.

MoM for me was Darren Dods - a cracking game in defence and he did well when pushing forward. Having said that it wasn't the best performance of the season by anyone in a blue shirt. If we're to be happy fans on Sat night after they shaft Scumdee there has to be a lot of improvement.

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