Temple Of Saints - ??

Scottish Premier League - 04/03/2000

TFOE 4 Unlucky Saintees 1 League Table Here

Team : Robbo,Danny,Bollan,Weir,Dods,Kane,Chief,Frail,Paddy,Del,Pope
Subs : Cuthbert,Nathan,Gerry,Jones,Keyring

Five minutes. Five bloody minutes. Three hundred seconds of a lack of concentration and we throw away a point and look like the amateurs that lost at Pittodrie. Still if there's a silver lining in the cloud of getting gubbed it's that some of the 11 that started today might be brought back down to Earth.

St Sandy started with the same line-up as last week with the only change being the introduction of Kevin Cuthbert on to the bench. After the hilarity of the "Community Singing" from the TFOE bigots (basically some tattie famine song with a verse about Henprick done to a karaoke display on the TV screens) and the usual abuse from the surrounding Tims (including the "family" section at the left of us which of course we weren't allowed to shout back at by the stewards cos that wouldn't be fair, it was time to settle down and watch the game.

From the start it was obvious Sellik had another great youth prospect in Messrs Johnston and McBride. Unfortunately linesmen don't get player of the year awards despite their undoubted and large contribution to the Sellik performance. Offside decisions were only given against Saints and as for the foul on Weir by Berkopiss even Baldy Rowbotham let us down on that one. As expected Saints were put under the cosh again but it was different from the Death Star last week as the defence were a lot slower to react and unable to cover Robbo as much.

Still the Saints "rookie" keeper had a couple of good saves although he looked a bit suspect at the cross ball. And with McNamara having a can-can contest of high kicks with Blaster and Danny having a really bad day and Dods struggling to keep Verruka and his Incredible Flying Elbows at bay the first goal was only a matter of time.

So 18 minutes gone and Verruka breaks down the right, gets a good cross over and an unmarked Burchill drives past Robbo. After that the pressure continued with the Saints midfield posted missing far too often. Too many stray passes and an unwillingness to tackle (unlike last week) meant that Sellik had plenty of room to move. Of course when linesmen give stupid decisions like free kicks on the edge of the box it doesn't help. We only had a couple of wild efforts in the first half with Del and Paddy struggling to keep possession and suffering from a lack of support from the midfield.

Still a break up the right on the half-hour brought some reward. Del crossed from the bye line and Chief rose at the back post to knock the ball back across goal where Paddy got up to head past Grant Mitchell to even the scores. The rest of the half was a war of offside as the refs whistle continued to break play. Except for when Verruka and his Incredible Flying Elbows had the ball of course - then the flags stayed down to let him through to miss or see Robbo pull off an excellent save. Of course Saints weren't going to escape from this uninjured and Cap'n Jim took a nasty elbow in the ear which saw him replaced by Keyring at half-time.

Second-half was a bit more even with a Bollan free-kick causing a Mitchell Bruvver problems in goal although we lacked the killer touch that all the noisy Saints fans in the crowd (despite having the usual shite view of the pitch) knew that Nathan could provide.

Unfortunately by the time he came on to replace Paddy after 65 minutes we'd gone 2 behind thanks to a Verrukka header and helped by poor Saints defending. This was the start of the Bad Period for Saints.

3 minutes later and it was 3-1 when Verruka held off Saints poor defensive challenges to shoot past Robbo although to be fair to the Saints defenders if the same had happened with say Legend as the striker then there would have been a free kick for the defence. A Saints player picked up the first yellow of the game (either Del or Danny) 2 minutes later and another couple of minutes after that we were 4-1 behind after Burchill got the chance to oust Kenny Miller from the Scotland squad.

So that was it really. We spent the last 20 minutes playing some good football with Nathan causing all sorts of problems and Keyring, Bollan (from another cracking free-kick), Nathan and Del all had shots saved by Gould which would have restored a bit more justice to the scoreline. Oh yeah and Frail picked up a booking.

Still we managed to wind the TFOE bigots up though - a clearance from Blaster went right into some of their ugly faces in the crowd guaranteeing a wonderful reception every time he touched the ball after that.

It wasn't the shocker of a performance that the scoreline suggests and there is NO way that Robbo was at fault. The loss of Weir affected us badly and Dods, Danny, Kane and to a certain extent Pope had off days. We are still a good side though but maybe it's time for St. Sandy to be a bit more daring and attack-minded and get Nathan on from the start. MoM for me was hard to pick but I reckon Chief shades it - he's still willing to fight for everything for the full 90.

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