Pars 1 Unlucky Saintees 1 League
Table Here
Team ::
Main,McQuillan,Bollan,Dods,Kernaghan,Dasovic,O'Neil,Preston,
Kane,Georgio,Simao
Subs :: Lowndes,Legend,McMahon,McCluskey,Ferguson
After the heroics of the semi-final last Tuesday and based on past experience of Saints sides it wouldn't have been that much of a shock had we lost this game convincingly. But these are changed times and St. Sandys Crusaders have one thing the old Saints teams lacked - confidence in abundance.
For the third game in a row St. Sandy stuck by the same side with the only change being McCluskey promoted to the subs bench in place of Danny. From the start though it was obvious that the Fifers were there to spoil any sort of flowing football from Gods Chosen Ones, with their reputation as the Wimbledon of the Scottish game being well lived up to.
Having said that for all Saints hard work in the early stages, especially Miguel (henceforth officially nicknamed 'Bandito' by the Perth faithful), there was only a half-hearted Kane effort to show for things. At the other end though the Saints defence were caught out several times with Main forced into a couple of early saves. With Stuart Dougal as ref Saints were always going to find things hard, and Father Dougal was the first name into the book after 12 minutes for a clash with Smith, although from my viewpoint, both players were at it.
However much worse was to come after 22 minutes. The Pars broke down the right and after a clash with Bollan, the linesman raised his flag for a free kick for Saints. Cue for the rest of the defence to halt but Mr Dougal to refrain from blowing his whistle. The upshot was that the Pars player squared the ball for Smith to tap home and cause uproar amongst the away team and fans.
For a period after that Saints saw nothing go right for them with Simao and Georgio constantly fouled with no free kick being awarded and the Saints defence caught out several times. Not that we didn't cause our own problems with Kano and Dazza both having very off-days in midfield and Il Biscotti obviously struggling with the strain which almost caused him to miss the match. However we had some chances, with Bandito especially causing the Pars defence all sorts of problems. But with close marking and Saints lacking imagination other than high balls at the home penalty area only Dazza and Preston efforts came close to causing any problems although Kane forced Butler to go low to stop a goalbound shot.
The second half saw Saints looking much more eager for the ball and managing to keep it on the ground for a change. With 55 minutes gone, Saints had some excellent build up play from Del, Kane, McQ and Bandito come to little effect. But the ball was played back to John McQ and he let fly from 25 yards into the net to make it 1-1.
After that it was all Saints for a good half-hour as they showed the class and style which we've come to love in recent weeks. St. Sandy put on Gerry for Il Biscotti and Nathan for Bandito as we went in search of the winner. The period saw shots from Dazza, Del, Georgio, Gerry, Kid Goals all to no avail with Del just missing a low drive sent across the goalmouth.
Legend was brought on for Georgio to no avail and it was the cheating Pars who had some shots towards the end (just why did Dougal ignore their illegal corner kicks?), but for once there was some justice as a defeat for Saints would have been a bigger robbery than last week. Overall it was a good performance. Kane did look to have suffered from playing midweek and Il Biscotti and Georgio weren't 100% fit. On the plus side the defence looks as strong as ever. My only quibble with St. Sandys selection is the choice of Bandito as a starting player over Kid Goals.
MoM for me was Darren Dods - immense in defence. Oh and the new improved East End Park is nice - I always wondered what it would be like to get a view of the pitch unobstructed by pillars / fencing or media galleries.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Points |
| Rangers | 12 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 19 | 7 | 24 |
| Kilmarnock | 12 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 7 | 23 |
| Celtic | 12 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 18 | 13 | 17 |
| Saints | 12 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 13 | 17 |
| Dundee | 12 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 11 | 15 |
| Dundee Utd | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 13 | 13 |
| Hearts | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 14 | 13 |
| Motherwell | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 16 | 13 |
| Aberdeen | 12 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 12 | 17 | 11 |
| Dunfermline | 12 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 15 | 11 |
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