Temple Of Saints - Fightback !!

Scottish Premier League - 15/02/2000

Fighting Saints 1 Cheating Bigots of Darkness 1 League Table Here

Team : Main,Frail,Bollan,Weir,Danny,Kane,Chief,Del,Paddy Pope,Dods
Subs : Dolph,Nathan,Jones,Lauchlan,McCluskey

Now I'm trying to be as objective as possible here regarding the decisions of Mr John "call me Billy the Mason" Underhill but...aw f*ck it - this game was ruined by some of the worst refereeing decisions of the season. If there was ever any evidence needed of a conspiracy in the Scottish game regarding OF bias from referees all the proof can be found in the second half tonight.

Which makes it all the more galling that one of the gutsiest Saints fightbacks of the season didn't end in all 3 points staying at McD. Still we can be happy in the knowledge that for a while tonight there was signs that the teamwork and spirit that got us to Finland and Monaco are still there.

St. Sandy shook up the team to play a 5-4-1 formation (Which became more of a 4-4-2 as the game went on) with Paddy Thingy recalled from the Mists of Reserveland to play the lone striker role. And he was pretty good as well showing a lot more fight than Goalden has recently. Defensively we had Danny at right-back and Weir and Dods in the middle, whilst Frail moved to right midfield with Pope and Del in the middle pushing forward to help Paddy.

And it worked. For a large part of the first half we had more of the possession in midfield and played by far the sexier attacking football with Pope to put it mildly taking the piss out of Barry the Ned and the Hun Hun. The opening stages saw both Paddy and Frail shoot narrowly wide with the first effort from Paddy the end result of some great build-up from Pope and Chief.

Of course this meant that the sucker punch was due and in 22 minutes Durie the diver didn't need to as Main brought him down, although the handball that led to the Huns attack went strangely unpunished (or not so strangely given some of the other decisions). Straightforward penalty, a booking for Main and then a superb save from the Hun Hun to shut the bigots up.

10 minutes later and even more laughs as a pathetic TFOD defensive clearance cannons off two of their defenders with Moore limping for the rest of the game and Craporuso stretchered off to the late night Spar !! Talk about self-abuse.

By now the ref had decided that Saints weren't going to take the usual punishment and pretty soon Pope and Frail joined Jesus in the book - Pope's was fair enough but if Frail merited a booking then Spuman and Barry the Ned deserved the same. Saints finished off the half with the weird sight of Forrest Gump breaking down the right and sending a low cross across an empty goalmouth.

Second-half started with Sandy moving to a 4-4-2 formation with Del pushing forward more. But with the usual refereeing it meant we went under the cosh and Andrei the Bakers-Stalker had a tumble on the edge of the box. Cue for the Hun Hun to try and score and blast wide. With even the ref's help not working in Wiggy's favour he played his last card and put on "Fergus' LoveChild" McCann.

2 minutes later and his diving had a free-kick on the far left. Long ball over, Saints only half-clear and Vidmar smashes a shot in from the edge of the box. Now the Saints side of the last few months might have caved in at this point but the lads dusted themselves down and set about getting back into the game with some passion.

5 minutes later and we had a mini-brawl which ended up in a yellow for Blaster and a warning for Swearie Sandy. Strange how the linesmen noticed Sandy having a shout but missed Spuman charging 10 yards to start barging Saints about - to say the least Cap'n Jim and Blaster were more than slightly pissed. Sandy put on Jones for Chief and he moved up front with Del dropping back to the centre of midfield but to little effect. Danny was the next to go into the book as McCann dived once more.

With time running out St. Sandy pulled his masterstroke and replaced the tiring Del with the Ginger Bomber. 3 minutes later and a rare Saints free kick (it was on the halfway line so there is no danger of Mr Underhill being blackballed by the lodge) saw Danny send the ball to the edge of the TFOD box. Jones met it and despite having his shot blocked, fed it out to Nathan who sent a narrow low drive past Klos from 12 yards. It shut the bigots up even more.

McCluskey came on for the knackered Pope as the last few minutes saw some good end-to-end football with Saints clearing their lines easily and Goalden shooting just wide from the narrowest of angles.

MoM for me was Pope - purely for taking the piss out of the so-called world-class midfield. Mentions too for Paddy C and Frail who both put in a decent shift.

Next time.....

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