Temple Of Saints - Lady Luck Smiles Again

Scottish Premier League - 04/03/2000

TFOD Sod All Glorious Saintees 0 League Table Here

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

It was backs to the wall for most of the game and Saints used up most of their remaining luck for the season as well as picking up several more bookings for the collection and yet another injured keeper, but make no mistake despite what the BiasedBC will say on TV tonight - we thoroughly deserved at least a point.

St. Sandy stuck by the same 4-4-2 side as last week with the only change to the side being the return of Keyring to the bench. He even promised that Saints would "have a go" today. And he was almost right.

Only two minutes had passed and the bigots had barely stopped bastardizing Tina Turner when Pope sent a sweet ball through the middle for Del to run onto. He squared the ball across the middle but Lazarus failed to make contact.

Unfortunately that was the last we saw of Saints attacking for most of the rest of the half as the combination of some fired-up Huns and some crap midfield play from Saints meant that we were under the cosh. We did have a rare free-kick on the edge of the Hun box but Danny's long-range effort went wide this week. Dolph made a couple of good saves but for a while the Saints defence seemed content to stand off their man and leave them room to pass rather than tackle. Blaster was guilty of this initially when Andrei the Git from the Gulag skinned him a couple of times but in the centre of defence we still had "No Fear" Weir and Dods who both characterised the Saints style today by blocking countless shots.

Still the small travelling support did get the odd laugh - the diving antics of Rodney "the Plonker" Wallace and that guy Rozenthal that used to commentate on Formula 1. And we got to see Craporuso booked for dissent in a rare moment of fair play from ref Dougie McDonald - not that it lasted though especially given the help from a linesman at the Saints end who took until the second 45 before showing that he had learnt the offside rule.

Saints were struggling in midfield though with Chief and Frail looking especially crap. It didn't help when Kane picked up Saints first booking after 39 minutes.

Things got worse straight after that. From the free kick TFOD sent the ball into the box and in going for the ball with Craporuso, Dolph landed awkwardly. Fair play to Craporuso that he actually got play halted and it was 5 minutes, a stretcher for Dolph and a sub keeper in the shape of Robbo before the game got underway once more. Still we held our own until the break.

The second-half was minutes old when Saints had their best chance yet. A Lazarus break up the wing saw him reach the bye-line and square the ball to Pope. Unfortunately for Saints the linesman decided to start flagging for offside.

At the other end Chief was bundled over in his own box. No foul given as ref McDonald tried to help TFOD in every way possible and when the ball went out of play Danny picked up a yellow for dissent. Robbo managed to remove any concerns we might have had at his ability over the next 10 minutes with a couple of world class saves including a beautiful scoop from under the bar.

With Saints living on their wits St. Sandy pulled off the tiring Paddy and put on supersub Nat King Goals. Some things stayed the same though including the performance of the arse who impersonated a referee and Dods was next in the book. Another Robbo tip over the bar saw Saints come to life and after pushing up the park and winning a corner the ball broke to Chief on the far side unmarked and only 12 yards out only to see him screw the shot wide. Then Nathan shot just over the bar.

McCann came on for TFOD but failed to dive and St. Sandy put Keyring on for the crap Frail. Del moved to the right wing to let Keyring take over on the left.

The last 10 minutes saw a Tubby Rozenthal shot cleared off the line after Robbo made a rare mistake and failed to smother the ball and another couple of booking as Saints held on. First it was Chief for doing nothing and then Pope for tripping the TFOD keeper as he tried to clear the ball - being an ex-Tim of course it was the last offence that had the bigots baying for a red card.

Last chance fell to Saints as Nathan turned greedy and tried to do the running himself instead of passing.

Still overall it was a good performance from the lads. Having said that there was a lot of silly basic mistakes from Saints and if we hadn't had the luck we would have been on the end of another 3 or 4 goal defeat. Losing Dolph is a blow (and it looks like he's split his kneecap so will be out for the season), but Robbo proved himself more than up to the task today. MoM for me though was Cap'n Jim - some tough tackling in the first half but he managed to stop everything.

A point from the Death Star? The Force is with us !!!!

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