Palmerston Park

Queen of the South v Alloa Athletic

Alloa manager Paul Hartley was disappointed his side took nothing from a game in which they contributed so much and competed well. Queen of the South have already proved this season that they have set the benchmark for this season now leading the league and the still the only side unbeaten in the league this season. Kevin Cawley passed a fitness test and lead the line for “The Wasps”, the game was fairly even early on with best chances for the visitors falling to Ryan McCord and Martin Grehan who after getting into good position delayed his shot and the opportunity was lost. Scott Bain was in wonderful form pulling off three wonderful saves to keep the scores level at half-time. Queen’s opened the second half strongly but Alloa’s defence looked strong. Then for the second time this season Nicky Clark was to be the man who mattered, scoring while Alloa were having a good spell in the game after his initial shot had been blocked. Paul Hartley introduced all three Alloa substitutes in an effort to grab an equaliser but Queen’s held out for a narrow 1-0 victory, Kevin Cawley had an opportunity late in the game but it was not to be on this occasion.

Pictures from Colin Johnstone, QOS FC

paul hartley at dumfries

We can take plenty of positives from that performance, we defended very well and in the end lost to a scrappy goal. I thought we were going to get a point, there wasn’t much in it at all. We watched Queen’s in midweek against Dundee United and I thought they were excellent, but today we nullified their two forwards. We had to come here with a game plan and I think it worked well, even after they scored. Having watched them we knew they create a lot from wide areas and we had to restrict them and that worked well. Even their goal was scrappy and we should have cleared it.
They are a real threat through the middle given half a chance but we didn’t allow them to create the chances. I thought we had done enough for a draw but Queen’s are a very strong side and we know they will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season, but I’m proud of my players and their efforts. We move on to another hard game against Forfar Athletic next week, but every game is difficult in this league and we will need to be up for that game too.

 
1 - 0
Full Time

Queen of the South v Alloa Athletic

Alloa Athletic are hurting after losing 5-2 at Palmerston Park against Queen of the South in the Scottish Communities League Cup. Although never playing as well as they can “The Wasps” scored twice and were level going into the last twelve minutes of the game, before the home side scored three goals in seven minutes to clinch the tie, a result in the end which was harsh on Paul Hartley’s side but on the day no one could deny Queen’s desrved their victory.

Fantastic Alloa support at Starks Park
paddy connolly at palmerston

I think the score line was a bit heavy on us but the better team won in the end. Obviously disappointed in the result, we showed a bit of character to come back into the game twice, we have shown this in the past last season but today we didn’t defend well, we didn’t play well as a team, at half time, the manager spoke to them and told them we were still in the game at 1-0 down, we hadn’t played well – we showed a bit character getting the goal but I think overall the better team won. We will bounce back. We have a tough league game next Saturday against East Fife. Queen of the South look to have set the bench mark for the second division and gave us a bit of a hiding today looking at the score line at the end of the day – the manager has had harsh words with the players today and told them it’s not good enough which I need to agree with on that as we never performed well, too many of our players did not show the quality that they showed last season. Queen of the South will be the team to chase but we will bounce back. It was a bit of an eye opener for us in the heaviness of the defeat – we will be back into training on Tuesday. It is hard to pick positives when have been beaten 5-2. We did score two goals away from home and would like to think on another day that would be enough to win the tie but losing 5 goals was a bit of a sore one. The manager is still looking to bring one or two new players in but obviously players are now being tied up and we might need to look at the loan situation – we had a few injuries today that left us short but that is no excuse we had a strong 11 out there and we expected to get a result today and get a decent performance but never got that. Daryll Meggatt was suspended today but he will come into our thoughts on Tuesday at training, however we will be without Ben Gordon next Saturday against East Fife as he serves a one match suspension carried over from last season so someone will need to come in to cover for Ben who has been one of our top performers so far this season. We had the same situation last year where we were knocked out early in the two cups so hopefully we will bounce back from it.
5 - 2
Full Time