Alloa got off to a flyer against the northeast side when Steven Boyd started and finished a flowing move. Cawley and Henderson showing excellent awareness with two first time passes freeing Boyd to find the bottom left corner. The Wasps continue to threaten on the break but they couldn’t quite carve another opening.

After sloppily giving the ball away though, Alloa were punished. Peterhead’s own pacy forward converted at Hutton’s front post with a flick from McCarthy’s cross and the away side grew into the game after the goal.

At a corner McDonald and Hutton clashed and both were booked. This proved vital, as a minute and a half later, Hutton palmed away the effort of Scott Brown from outside the box into the path of Payne. The Alloa stopper caught the Peterhead striker and a penalty was awarded as well as a second yellow. Alloa for the 3rd home game in a row found themselves down to ten men. Keir Burt replaced Cawley as he was sacrificed for the substitute goalie but there no heroics as Scott Brown deftly fired it low beyond the youngster. Alloa did provide an instant reaction – Scougall floating inside with the ball switched to Church and he delivered on a plate for Charlie Gilmour to rattle a volley high into the net.

Alloa were level but in the second half the introduction of McLean provided yet another target as the set pieces mounted. He won an unmarked flick-on to reinstate the Blue Toon lead. Alloa barely threatened the Peterhead goal as the disadvantaged 10 men continued to chase.

Late on, probably the man of the match, Josh Mulligan finished an impressive flowing break to cement the three points for the visitors. Ill discipline has proven a difficult hurdle so far with a third red card in just 10 league games proving again too much for Alloa as we slip to 8th in the league.

Alloa took on the pre-season bookies favourites at the Indodrill with the rain belting down for much of the game.

Drama was quick to kick off as the ever influential Mouhamed ‘Sena’ Niang lunged into a tackle after just 19 seconds. The referee quickly produced a red card and Alloa were reduced to 10 men. Despite this impediment the 10 men of Alloa were resolute and they created the best chance of the first half when Adam King rocketed a shot left-footed towards Stewart McKenzie’s goal. The Cove keeper saved well but it was the only shot in anger forced upon either goalkeeper in the first half. Blair Yule had Cove’s best chance with a free header but could only put it wide from 7 yards.

Shaleum Logan was a continual threat from his deliveries and after 53 minutes proved it again when Durnan glanced a header across the six yard box from the right back’s cross. Rory McAllister was there to head home from point blank range. Alloa rallied and quickly made changes with Cawley replacing Sammon and later Howie and Robertson for Church and King respectively. After Taggart botched a run down the wing, he quickly recovered and robbed the slack Cove defence and driving into the box won a corner. Up stepped Stefan Scougall who blazed the corner in only for it to ricochet off Blair Yule’s thigh and helplessly bounce into the back of the net. Alloa were level and again for long periods you could forget the contest was 10v11.

The game was quickly erupting into chaos all over the park as both hopefuls swung for the second goal and the lead. Kevin Cawley had a spectacular whipped effort cannon off the outside of the post while just seconds later Cove were given a gift by Mendy’s loose pass to Harry Milne. He played in Masson who drove to the byline and sliced the Alloa defence open with McAllister delivering the killing blow and a second goal of the afternoon.

Late on Alloa defender Howie stretched his leg out to tackle Megginson and, despite what looked like minimal contact and despite pleading his case that he was beyond the 18 yard box, the referee pointed to the spot. Rory McAllister smartly finished to make it 3-1 to the visitors and Alloa were left to rue what might have been if Cawley’s effort had cracked the inside of the post instead of the outside.

Alloa drop to 7th in the table while Cove set the pace, before Queen’s Park play their ‘game in hand’ on Sunday.

Alloa overcame their close neighbours in what was ultimately a routine home win for the Wasps. Alloa handed a debut to new Hearts loanee Euan Henderson, while Scougall made way after feeling unwell before the game, in the only forced change, from the side that started last week’s win over Cowdenbeath.

Alloa had the best of the opportunities as Boyd broke through and Trouten bounced a diving header wide. They would grab the breakthrough as Taggart lobbed a curling ball over everyone for the run of Henderson who eventually prodded home with a slow roll of the ball past Mutch. Alarm bells were ringing for Alan Trouten who was instantly removed from the field of play after receiving some treatment on his errant hamstring. Cammy O’Donnell joining the play in sad circumstances.

While the Wasps goalkeeper was active, only one curling effort required a serious save in the first half. Alloa were dealt another serious blow when red hot Boyd felt unfit to continue on 40 minutes. Former Bairn Conor Sammon replaced him. O’Donnell unleashed a volley from 30 yards that narrowly missed Mutch’s woodwork and passed up a glorious cutback where he could only find the Falkirk goalkeeper.

Falkirk threatened early, twice in the second half but again it was the Wasps who were superior. A deep free kick aimed to Durnan, was nodded across goal for Sammon to seal the three points. Alloa closed out the game almost flawlessly, with only one hairy moment as Ompreon was denied an exquisite finish by Hutton’s fingertips and the resulting corner was saved by a goal line clearance from King.

Alloa reverted to the tried and tested 4-2-3-1 with Mendy and King dropping out of the starting XI to make way for the stalwarts of Robertson and Cawley.

It was the home side who created the tantalising chances in the early minutes, Boyd would rue an early opening shot as he chested down Robertson’s cross, and unmarked could only smash it at Muir in the centre of the Queen’s Park goal. Mouhamed ‘Sena’ Niang also had a driven effort fly wide. Sammon charging through was almost brutally smashed by an errant knee, Wullie Muir lucky to escape with just a yellow after a nasty challenge on the Irishman and Kevin Cawley would meet another Robertson cross with a header straight at the Spider’s keeper.

The major deciding factor of the first half was the quickfire double yellow of Craig Howie, after being second to a 50/50 and inflicting a fair amount of pain on him and his opposite number he was shown a yellow and 16 minutes later would receive a second yellow after a naive sliding challenge missed ball and caught man. It was a galling decision from an Alloa viewpoint especially as Queen’s Park skipper and former Alloa legend Michael Doyle had escaped a similar mistimed tackle on Sammon minutes earlier.

But as the first half wore on Queen’s were held to only long range efforts on Hutton’s goal.

The second half saw Alloa soaking up the pressure in what can accurately be described as two banks, a 4-5 formation, with the introduction of King for Cawley. But again somehow the hosts were the ones challenging on goal as Sammon curled on his weak foot into the arms of Muir and Boyd couldn’t quite run himself into a shooting position as Muir was again forced to come collect the ball at the Alloa forward’s feet.

But just as the Queen’s Park lack of imagination was showing, Doyle whipped in a ball to the 6 yard box, Hutton gets caught in no man’s land, and neither Robertson or Graham can stop Simon Murray nodding in for the opener from the visitors.

Credit to the Barry Ferguson who immediately saw the need to open things up again, O’Donnell and Mendy coming on for Taggart and Sammon, and the system changed to a much brighter 3-1-4-1. The Wasps kept finding openings and Queen’s Park were forced to bite at the heels of Boyd and Scougall which only stirred the hornet’s nest at the Indodrill as the 10 men began to make it a stretched end to end tie.

With Sena being brought down a hairs-breadth outwith the box, up stepped Boyd to deliver a free-kick off the bar twice and over the line but the equaliser hadn’t put paid to the breathless end to the game. Queen’s Park managed to smack the bar after Murray’s effort was barely deflected off course and Boyd was blocked smartly up the other end after another dazzling solo run. Both title hopefuls left with a hard-fought point.

Barry Ferguson, Alloa Athletic Manager

“I was happy enough, we created a few chances with 11 men, then obviously when we go down to 10 men we need to play a certain way which is not ideal, we’ve got to sit behind the ball and try to frustrate and, hopefully, we get that odd chance from a set piece and that’s what we spoke about and, thankfully, we got it.

“One thing the boys showed today was character, that’s the most important thing.”

“I’m happy with the result after going down to 10 men. Queen’s Park move the ball pretty well, they never really cut us open, it was from our mistake that they got the goal. It was good character, good resilience from us”

“I watched Alloa a number of times before I took the job and that’s one thing I noticed they were always decent enough and getting beat. Today we showed a bit of siege mentality. We’ve got good quality, we just need to gel it all together. It’s not going to happen overnight but i know what football’s like, you’ve got to start winning as quickly as possible. You don’t want to be a number of points behind teams going into November-December”

Alloa gave two debuts today as Mark Durnan made his first start and we saw an interesting 3-4-3 formation take shape for the outing against East Fife. With the elite SBS (Scougall, Boyd and Sammon) leading the line Alloa looked to carve the early opportunities. The pressure told after 29 minutes when Scougall slipped past Higgins, charged into the East Fife box and laid on an outside of the boot through ball for Boyd to hit home at the back post. David Hutton made a magnificent to deny Danny Denholm, a player who seems cursed to defeat at the Indodrill, as the veteran athletically launched a strong arm to beat the ball away from the equaliser.

In the second half East Fife reclaimed parity with a sublime Jamie Semple pile driver. Hutton beaten at full stretch as the ball rocketed past him from 25 yards. With the confidence of the wondergoal firmly in mind, East Fife pushed for a second but it was the Wasps who would bite back. Daniel Church providing a precision cross to pick out Conor Sammon. The Irishman poked home at the front post to restore the Alloa lead. Just a minute after the restart East Fife were punished as Sammon, Boyd and Scougall executed a swift counterattack and raced through with the former Hamilton man firing past Gallacher to give himself a chance at a hat trick.

Alloa managed the game out as East Fife struggled to triage a wounded front line. Alloa’s league campaign getting back on track as they jumped to 6th in League 1.

We dominated the game

Barry Ferguson : “In the first half, I think we dominated the game, no doubt about that. We were a wee bit wobbly, they scored the goal, felt a bit sorry for ourselves but I was waiting on a reaction and I got that. Once we got the second goal, I always thought we were going to be in control. When we got the third goal we just saw out the game.”

“That’s what I want. The only thing I can be disappointed in is the first 15 minutes of the second half but I got a reaction with good nights on Tuesday and Thursday and obviously a good result against East Fife, who got a great result against Queen’s Park last week.”

We’ll get there through hard work

“[Scoring’s] been a problem for Alloa over the years and that’s one thing we need to do. We’re solid enough defensively but we need to create more opportunities. Today, we were good and we’ve got three goals. That’s something we work hard on but something that won’t happen overnight because it’s a new group but we’ll get there through hard work.”

“The market is slow in terms of loans but just now we need to work with what we’ve got but hopefully we can have one or two back in contention after Tuesday night.”

He’s phenomenal

“Scougs was in a different position today, He’s got fantastic ability but one thing I love about him is his work rate. He’s phenomenal. If you look at him he’s about 8 stone wet but he gives me everything. I need to get a position where I can build my team around a player like him. He’s a matchwinner when he plays like that.”