Borough Briggs

Elgin City v Alloa Athletic

“The Wasps” progressed to the 4th Round of this season’s William Hill Scottish Cup after a 3-1 victory against Elgin City at Borough Briggs, the sides meeting for the first time in the competition.

Alloa started brightly with Kevin Cawley and Liam Dick forcing the home keeper into early action, however it was the home side who took the lead after 26 minutes when Kane Hester put in Rory MacEwan who fired low into the net.

Gavin Price’s side who are on a rich vein of form took heart from taking the lead and Alloa goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald did well on a couple of occasions to stop the home side increasing their lead.

However in the second half “The Wasps” got the important early goal and an equaliser, Kevin O’Hara’s initial effort was parried by Tom McHale but Scott Taggart smashed home the loose ball. The tide had turned now and it was no surprise when Kevin Cawley put “The Wasps” ahead just before the hour.

At this stage it was more or less one way traffic and Alan Trouten looked certain to score, but his effort was blocked by home keeper Tom McHale but the alert Kevin O’Hara was on hand to win the tie for “The Wasps”.

Liam Dick header saved by Tom McHale
Rory MacEwan opens the scoring for Elgin City
Jamie MacDonald saves from Shane Sutherland
Scott Taggart scores the equaliser
Kevin Cawley puts "The Wasps" 2-1 ahead
Game over 3-1 to "The Wasps"
peter grant after scottish cup victory at elgin

I thought we played a lot of good stuff in the first half but without really hurting the opposition, we had said we didn’t want to give Elgin a start and then lost a bad goal and Jamie then had to pull off a good save after that, which gave them a lift from our errors  in the first half. We have to give Jamie credit because he pulled off a couple of good saves at crucial times.

We dominated a lot of the ball but we knew how difficult it would be because Elgin City have been on a great run of form, I have watched them a few times and they are a credit to their league the way they play and they have very good players who can hurt you, we always knew we were in a difficult game, but cup ties are all about winning and I was delighted the way we responded and played in the second half and deserved our victory.

In the second half we got the important early goal and never looked back, we gave Liam Dick the first hour after coming back from injury and that was important because Blair Malcolm done his ankle the other night in training. Young Nathan Gilhooly came on to give him more first team action, he has been training really well and deserved his run out.

I was pleased all round I thought there was a lot of good stuff, yes there are things we still need to get better at we always know that, but I don’t think anybody could argue about the result and the main thing was to be in the draw for the next round.
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Elgin City v Alloa Athletic

The Wasps have put themselves in a good position after victory at Borough Briggs, Elgin this evening, the club’s first ever victory at the ground. The players were excellent from the off, carrying on from their penalty shoot out victory v. Dundee United at Tannadice on Saturday.

The opening goal came as early as the second minute, Jake Hastie scoring his first goal for the club. Nine minutes later in was 2-0 Alan Trouten scoring his third goal in three matches and Jim Goodwin’s men had made a statement.

Elgin City made a strong start to the second period, with home manager Gavin Price looking for a reaction, however Jake Hastie’s second goal of the game, set up by Reis Peggie, killed the game.

jim goodwin after victory at elgin

Good to get a victory at Borough Briggs for first time another good monkey to get off our backs, but tonight was just a good team performance; right from the start of the game the boys were excellent, the goals were obviously important and being 2-0 up at half-time, I then thought Elgin came out and were the better team for the opening five minutes in the second half, but the third goal really killed the game off, it was a great ball from Reis Peggie and Jake Hastie had an excellent touch over the goalkeeper’s head and that really killed Elgin’s momentum and we were able to manage the game from there on in.

We have been in a very difficult group – Arbroath at home is a difficult tie, Dundee united another difficult game and then coming up here on a Tuesday night with all the travelling and everything else which could have been another difficult night but I think the players deserve a lot of credit for the way they went about the last two games, we have had three games in seven days which is very demanding on the players because how tight the squad is as well, we had a couple of suspensions tonight with Liam Dick and Iain Flannigan, two key players drop out the team and Reis Peggie and Jon Robertson came in and it was just like for like, that’s the beauty of having such a good squad, we still need to add to it, I think we still need two or three more bodies in, but quality and similar to what we have got and I think if we can get them in it will put us in a good place going forward.

It now goes down to a home match against Ross County, with only the winner guaranteed progression but with home advantage our confidence is high and hopefully everybody will come through the game unscathed, we have one or two with little knocks so hopefully they don’t come to much, but the boys are in great spirits at the moment and it certainly makes the trip down the road so much easier but we are looking forward to the Ross County game, we will be underdogs no doubt, Ross County will be up there at the top end of the Championship table competing to get back into the Premier League but we know if we go about our business in the manner that we have done in the last three games then we will certainly give them a difficult game.
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Elgin City v Alloa Athletic

Alloa Athletic manager Paul Hartley knows his side are capable of far better than their display at Borough Briggs against Elgin City on Saturday, to be honest “The Wasps” were as poor as they have played this season, going behind inside the first minute, but credit to Elgin City they were clinical. The home side gained in confidence from the opening goal, although  Alloa had lots of possesion they never had a cutting edge and needed to be more direct at times. Ross McKinnon was unfortunate to see his free kick strike the cross bar and at the start of the second half Michael Doyle after showing great pace was clear in the box but shot wide. Elgin’s third goal was when the home side soaked up Alloa pressure and caught the visitors on the break to kill off the game at 3-0, Elgin took their chances in the game while on the day Alloa had too many players who didn’t perform. We are still in a strong position in the league with the old cliche of one game at a time so relevent just now.

paul hartley after elgin defeat

It’s a sore one that’s for sure, I have no complaints about the score, Elgin took their chances but we didn’t give ourselves a chance losing a goal in the first minute, we had too many players having an off day today, it’s not like us we have been very solid as a team, we have been good and strong but it just wasn’t our day today, we didn’t perform in the way I expect my team to play. Yes I’m criticizing them for not performing – we had loads of possession but no cutting edge today. Elgin are a very good team , we hold our hands up, we always compliment the other team if they deserve it, for ourselves we had too many players having an off day, you can sometimes get away with one or two players not at their best but not when it is seven or eight of the team. The players know that in the dressing room, they will now need to look to bounce back. We’ve done really well to get to the top of the league, but its hard work to stay there, we are at the top of the league and everybody is looking to shoot you down, we are still where we want to be but we will need to look for a reaction for next week’s game again Clyde. We will look to bounce back from this, grind out a couple of results and get back to winning ways.
I will look to freshen up the team, I have always said that I will use the full squad and others players will be given their chance again next week.
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Elgin City v Alloa Athletic

Saturday at Borough Briggs facing Elgin City was to be a historic day for the club, the first time the clubs had met in a competitive league fixture but ended for “The Wasps” a game in which we did ourselves absolutely no favours, we never got going in difficult conditions and allowed Elgin City to get ahead far too easily. However nobody could have for seen what was to turn the game in a three minute spell prior to half-time. Although we had been far from our best we still had a lot of possession in the first half but had no penetration, Elgin were far more direct and shot on sight, their second goal came out of the blue and the third on half time was horrendous defending which resulted in Mark Docherty pulling back Brian Cameron and a penalty and sending off. That left “The Wasps” a mountain to climb in the second half. The game was finished in the 56th minute when referee Barry Cook awarded Elgin a 2nd penalty after Craig Gunn had clashed with Scott Bain which looked harsh. Elgin scored their fourth goal of the game but Scott Bain persisted in arguing with the officials and foolishly added to the teams woes by being red carded. Now down to 9 players from there on in it was backs to the walls and damage limitation, all credit to Elgin City they took advantage of the situation and scored a 5th goal. Alloa Athletic need to take the result on the chin and learn from this result, regardless of who we are playing you have to give yourself a chance in the game and we didn’t do that at Elgin and suffered badly. Not since 23rd September, 1995 have we lost a Third Division fixture 5-0, on that occasion we lost to Inverness Caledonian Thistle at home.

 

paul hartley after black day in elgin

We didn’t deserve anything from the game, that’s for sure, the two sending offs killed us -If you don’t start the game well you get punished and we didn’t start it well, credit to Elgin they deserved the victory – we have to regroup, forget about this, take the break next week and then look forward to the next game. We need to get this game and result out of our system as quick as we can. We will be working hard on Tuesday at training, we will need to learn from this defeat– it’s disappointing and you learn a lot about your players after a bad result and I am sure I will learn a lot about the players over the next couple of weeks. The second sending off was disappointing it was silly – you cannot do that if you are on a yellow card, you cannot have a go at the referee and he knows that but it gives Craig McDowall a chance to come back into the side – this happens in football, I will speak to those that have been on the bench and frustrated at not being in the squad they will get their chance now and that is what happens in the game – we get two sending offs which killed our chance but we made in so easy for Elgin, we can do so much better than that, we let ourselves and the fans down.
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