fter last Saturday’s victory over league leaders Ross County, Jim Goodwin’s team made it back to back victories at such an important stage of the season, “The Wasps” winning for their first time at the Falkirk Stadium which opened at start of Season 2004/05. Alloa Athletic last defeated Falkirk in the league away from home on 15th September, 1982 when Scott Murray scored in a 1-0 victory, their last victory at Brockville was in the League Cup on 24th August, 1983 when they won 4-2 with goals from Willie Garner, Frankie Cole, Davie Lloyd & Gary Thompson.

Manager Jim Goodwin looked to build on last week’s victory and looked to get forward at every opportunity, Dario Zanatta’s pace and direct running was causing the home defence problems with Jack Aitchison also looking sharp up front. The opening goal came after 38 minutes and was no more than the visitors deserved who always looked dangerous on the break.

Falkirk could not have had a better start to the second half, after 25 seconds the equaliser came when a cross from the left wing was turned home by a combination of Zak Rudden running into the box and defender Scott Taggart trying to knock the ball clear and diverting the cross ball past Neil Parry.

At this stage in the game Falkirk had their best spell and only stout defending kept the home side from taking the lead. Zak Rudden, Aaron Jarvis and Deimantas Petravicius all going close.

However with time running out and the game looking to be heading for a 1-1 draw, manager Jim Goodwin repaced Alan Trouten with Jordan Kirkpatrick to try and winn the three points and Jordan was to be the hero scoring with his first touch of the ball, Jack Hamilton heading forward a long clearance onto Kevin Cawley who nodded the ball onto Jordan Kirkpatrick who ran behind the Falkirk defence to score such a valuable winner for “The Wasps” who kept on believing they could win the three points.

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jim goodwin after victory at falkirk

We are an extremely happy bunch after that, it was  important we came here today and tried to follow up after the good performance last week, there was no point going and beating the best team in the league and then coming here and not being positive in our mindset.

We done that from the start of today’s game and with we deservedly got ourselves in front. Although after this we were disappointed to lose the goal just 25 seconds into the second half, we need to do better to avoid these opportunities arising for our opponents, but great testament to our players, at these points it is easy to crack under the pressure but we stood up and rode out the storm for the next five minutes and slowly but surely we got ourselves back into the game and went and got the late goal.

 Winning games at this late stage of the season is vital particularly in the position that we are in. We believed that we could come here and win the game today and this is shown through the way we were set up today. We discussed it as a team during the week, that there was no point in coming here and being happy to take a point from the game, it’s not how we go about things  so we set the team up to win rather than not to lose and I think you would see that in the way we played today.

First half we did well on the ball in possession and I think we caused them a number of problems and probably just lacked a little cutting edge in the final third with our final ball letting us down at times. This is the time to go on a run and put pressure on the teams around us in the league which is great.

It is going to be a busy week this week with Morton on Tuesday night and Queen of the South on Saturday which could be seen as a defining week for us. We have great confidence and great faith in each other as a group, people can talk about budgets and being part-time and everything else but when you have the togetherness and team spirit which we have with both staff and players it can take you a long way. This can be seen again today when there were players who are disappointed not to be starting today but when they come on the pitch today they have made a great impact on the game. All substitutes, Jack Hamilton, Kevin Cawley and Jordan Kirkpatrick were involved in the goal with Jack winning the first flick on, then Kevin nods it down, then Jordan who having only just came onto the park had the composure to finish it for us. I was delighted for all three of these boys as they have been terrific in training they don’t feel sorry for themselves they respect the decisions which I have to make and when they are needed throughout a game they are ready as shown in today’s game. The substitutions which we made showed that we were here trying to win the game, we weren’t going to hang on for a point, it was vital that we came here to win the game and we did that.

It is unusal having been 2-0 down away from home against a full-time side that we might feel aggrieved only to pick up a point in a 2-2 draw. However, apart from “The Wasps” opening 30 minutes in this match they dominated play and deserved more than their sixth draw of the season. Alloa had not won a league match at Falkirk since 15th September, 1982, when they won 1-0 thanks to a Garry Murray goal, Alex Totten being the last Alloa manager to win at Falkirk in the league.

This was a missed opportunity to win at the Falkirk Stadium, Alan Trouten’s goal just prior to half-time was huge and gave the players the belief they could go on and win the match while the Falkirk team looked far more nervy and got deeper as the game went on.

In the second half Alloa dominated the play and always looked to get forward playing positive football and looked the team most likely to score.

It was that man Alan Trouten who would score the desrved equalising goal on 77 minutes, his 12th goal of the season, back heeling the ball past Leonardo Fasan in the Falkirk goal.

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jim goodwin after draw at falkirk

I should be satisfied with our come back to gain a point after being two goals down but it is probably the most deflated I have felt after a game of football for a long time to be honest with you. I am really frustrated that we gifted Falkirk a two goal start, both sloppy goals as far as we are concerned. We needed to defend the first one better and stop the cross and be stronger with their striker in the box. The second one is one of the things we talked about at training on Thursday evening, Falkirk are a very direct football team and we knew they would want to put balls in behind us and we gave them too much space to do that and then Paul Paton gets a tap in, but after that we completely dominated the game, I thought we were well on top but the game is not all about possession stats it is goals that matter, but we completely controlled the game from there on and got a good goal just before half-time which was an important time to score.

Then in the second half I just felt we were camped in the Falkirk half for the majority of the game, the fact that I am sitting here now disappointed with a 2-2 draw speaks volumes. We have the kind of team I wanted to put together in the summer, I spoke to the boys when we were doing our recruitment and I was not willing to bring in guys who can’t handle the ball and not being wanting to play. We have a certain philosophy and I want to stick to it, I know it is a results business at the end of the day, some managers will grind out results but I do not want us to do it that way, I want to get good footballers in my team who can handle the ball and I would be really interested to see the stats today, we absolutely dominated the ball in terms of possession, I know it is what you do with it, I understand that and we can improve on that aspect we know we need to do more with the ball but I believe it would have been a travesty if we hadn’t come away with something from the game today.

I still think it is a massive point and how important it is going to be, who knows? I’m just frustrated at the cheap goals we are giving away, if we can cut out those cheap goals then we can give ourselves a chance to win a game, I always fancy us going forward, we will create chances like we have done today, Dario Zanatta’s shot that hit the post in the second half and we had other opportunities balls flashing across the face of the goal as Kevin Cawley did in the first half but someone has got to go and knock them in.

We are dropping a lot of cheap points and today we fancied ourselves coming here today, we thought if we defended well we would give ourselves a chance to win the game, but you cannot give any team a two goal start. Loads of positives to take from the afternoon and we will go to Firhill next week, not fearing no one. We now need to get another win on the board we have picked up far too many draws, wins are vital and hopefully we can achieve that next Saturday against Partick Thistle.

With only nine league matches remaining “The Wasps” slipped deeper into the relegation position, now eleven points adrift at the bottom of the league table. Although, Jack Ross, has installed the team to play more open football, knocking the ball confidently around the pitch, once again they appeared to lack a cutting edge in front of goal. The team created some good chances against a strong Falkirk side who now sit in second place in the league table, however when the opportunity fell for Alloa they still could not get the goals they need to win matches. We now go to Dumbarton on Tuesday for the rearranged fixture after cancellatuion last week knowing only a victory will be good enough.

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jack ross after derby defeat

With the difference at the bottom of the league increasing to eleven points, I believe it is now difficult but not beyond the players, I said prior to the game after losing last Saturday to Livingston I had hoped to have played on Tuesday and today and potentially the points could have gone our way and the difference was as little as four again, but its went the flipside of that and the challenge is now huge but still not impossible, however we need to win matches – the outlook before and still is all about winning games which is not easy in this league, it is a tough league, you cannot highlight the fixture list and say where points will come, every match is difficult.

What I was pleased about today, was the reaction from last week and also in the second half today because we were coming here against a good side and could have folded in the second half, but they didn’t and remained as competitive as they could be. I said in the dressing room after the game we must have the ambition to win games between now and the end of the season and see where that takes us.

Scott Gallacher made some crucial saves in the match but I expect a goalkeeper playing against a team third in the league, now second, to make saves, he is a good goalkeeper, I have said that before, he is a keeper we are lucky to have at Alloa who I think would earn a team five, six or seven points over a season because he makes good saves at important times.

Ideally we would want to win every game from now to the end of the season, there is nothing wrong with setting that as your target because if you don’t it would be pointless us turning up, so we go again on Tuesday and look to try and win the game, the players by in large in the time I’ve been here have been great in terms of their attitude and commitment, they just lack a bit of belief especially in the final third of the park and that is indicative of how or season has went for us, thinking there is a hope we will score rather than an expectancy to do so, we keep trying to work on that and if we pick up some positive results, at least then we will have had some reward for those efforts.

We need to win matches, we haven’t won enough of them to date, although we are more competitive we still haven’t won enough games, so our target now is just to go and win matches, regardless of other teams we need to win matches.