Lee Cox (51)
|
Andy Kirk (5)
Alexander Keddie (15)
Martin Hardie (66)
Paul Burns (72) |
Appearances & Goals To Date
Starting Lineup
| Youngest Player: | Roman Golobart (19 years 296 days) |
| Oldest Player: | Richie Foran (2013 years 161 days) |
| Average Player Age: | 23 years 73 days |
| Domestic Players: | 10 (90.91 % of starting eleven) |
Matchday Squad
| Youngest Player: | Roman Golobart (19 years 296 days) |
| Oldest Player: | Graeme Shinnie (2013 years 161 days) |
| Average Player Age: | 23 years 199 days |
| Domestic Players: | 14 (87.50 % of matchday squad) |
First Team Debuts
Milestones
Replay Needed:
Well, we are still in the hat for the next round draw, but only just.
This was a tale of two keepers, or to be more correct, a tale of two keepers errors. In truth this was in my opinion one of the worst games of football ever witnessed at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium and neither side deserved to go into the next round. I was going to do a report on the game, but if truth be told, there was nothing to report other than two bloopers that led to both goals scored in farcical situations. The Dunfermline goal was even more incredulous when Gillet was given his marching orders for felling Andy Kirk after Tuffey committed blooper number one, and that was even topped off in style when the announcer said that Andy Barrowman was the scorer as the resultant free kick was palmed onto his bonce by Tuffey. Talk about adding insult to injury. Hayes returned the compliment in the sixth minute of stoppage time when Smith wildly sliced/fresh aired a simple rolling ball into the path of a delighted Jonny who rolled the ball into the empty net and that was blooper number two.
Hislopsoffsideagain has saved me the bother of trying to come up with a report about nothing, although I will add that our throw-ins have reached an all time low as Thomas Piermayr was twice halted by the refereee for taking foul throws within the space of a few minutes. What on earth do they teach them in Austria.
I think it's fair to say it is now official - 'Useless' Euan Norris is the worst official in Scottish football. Not content with screwing us over against Rangers, he appeared determined from the outset to allow our opponents to take liberties all over the pitch. The sending off of Gillet looked a bit fishy to me - Kenny appeared convinced he'd won the ball - and certainly there was plenty of protest that Barrowman was offside as he put Dunfermline in front.
Two incidents summed Norris up - in the first half he pulled up Barrowman for his umpteenth foul and clearly gave him a 'final warning' chat; a minute later Barrowman hacks someone else...and Norris stops him for a long chat again. Then, right on half-time Dunfermline's defensive wall refused to retreat for a free kick even when the ref stood where he wanted them to be. Instead of booking one of them, he gave up when he got them 8 yards...and then ignored the fact that one of them raced out so they were about 5 yards from the ball when the free kick was taken.
About the only thing that cretin of a referee got right was adding on six minutes for the obscene amount of time wasting the Pars did in the second half - though I don't know why he can't book the time wasters as well as adding on the time.
If I was a Dunfermline fan, I would be horrified and ashamed by their second half performance. They never had any control over the game, even against ten men, and seemed content simply to camp out on the 18 yard box and see the game out. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen in the time it took them to make one substitution. They managed all of two speculative efforts on goal in the second period, as far as I can recall.
As for us, we were pretty hopeless with eleven men, but I thought we did about as well as you can expect in the second half. Tuffers is the main villain of the piece - it was his horrendous air-shot on a backpass which led to the Gillet dismissal, and then he only managed to palm the resultant freekick straight to Barrowman. Frankly, he had fork all else to do for most of the game.
Our back four did a pretty good job today. Piermayr did well when tucked in at centre-half, though Coxy looked a bit uncertain when he was shunted to right-back. Once again, Golobart was superb. Barrowman took one look at him and clearly decided "I'm not up for taking him on" - so nothing has changed from when he played for us.
Most impressive for me was Foran, who I felt gave a real captain's performance today - he led by example with fantastic effort and seemed to be still urging everyone on even when all was lost. He's had plenty of criticism this season (much of it warranted) but since moved into midfield he has looked like a different man.
The big message to take away from this game is this: If Dunfermline are like this every week, then there is absolutely no chance we are going down.
Match report written by hislopsoffsideagain
