Two left with all to play for in junior football

May 23 2008

KINNOULL and Blairgowrie are the only teams with fixtures tomorrow – and they are both away from home.

Kinnoull are guests of super league side Hill o’ Beath in the quarter final of the Redwood Leisure Cup, while Blair take on Bro’ty in the final of the North League.

This will be Kinnoull’s third visit of the season to Keir’s Park on cup business and it hasn’t proved to be a happy hunting ground for them as they lost to the Haws on those two previous visits which were in the league cup semi final and in the Maloco Cup.

Kinnoull boss Scott Brown is however quite confident it will be third time lucky for his team in this Redwood Leisure Cup clash.

The Redwood is considered to be one of the regions major cup competitions.

Thirty six teams from the former Tayside and Fife Leagues are involved.

Kinnoull haven’t had a game for a couple of weeks and the players are feeling refreshed after this break and are looking forward to this cup clash and hopefully making it through to the semi final.

Two players, Stuart Nicol and Craig Milne will miss the game.

Nicol is serving the second of a two game ban while Craig Milne is unavailable.

On the plus side Jon Kelly returns to the squad which Scott Brown expects to number 15.

The Haws in contrast will be playing their fourth game in eight days when they meet Kinnoull tomorrow.

Last Saturday they played and won their super league game against Glenrothes and the points from this game assured them of super league status for next season.

They were back in action on Tuesday night against Kelty Hearts in the super league and they shared two goals and the points in this game.

Last night they were due to play Glenrothes again, this time in the Maloco Cup quarter final.

That’s quite a punishing schedule and who could blame them if they are a bit leg weary.

But they are looking forward to crossing swords with Kinnoull again in what should be a very interesting and competitive cup clash.

Blairgowrie after being idle for close on a fortnight are faced with two games in three days.

Tomorrow they are guests of Bro’ty in the final north league game of the season, then on Monday night they meet Tayport in the semi final of the Currie Cup away from home.

Blairgowrie, who have clinched the north league championship are still very keen to win this league game against Bro’ty who have an incentive to win.

If the Ferry side can take the points from this game they will finish as runners up to Blair, so this won’t be just an end of the season encounter.

Blairgowrie boss Billy Mackay will be without Zdenek Halenka for both games as he is unavailable.

There’s a question mark at Jamie Duncan who is nursing a foot injury and Jamie will have a fitness test before tomorrow’s game.

All going well Billy Mackay expects to have a squad of 15 available.

Scone Thistle and Jeanfield Swifts were both engaged in midweek games.

Thistle were away to Ballingry Rovers in the Kingdom Kegs Cup quarter final while Swifts were guests of Lochgelly Albert in the central league.

The Thistle went on to overturn the odds by beating their hosts 3–0 to make it to the semi final of the Kingdom Kegs Cup.

Swifts unfortunately finished on the wrong end of a 2-1 score line to Lochgelly.

This win for the Fifers confirms that they will finish in the third top position of the league table while Swifts are in a very respectable fifth position.

Ballingry Rovers were playing in their first home game since winning the central league championship when they met Scone on Tuesday night and they received a warm reception from their supporters.

Thistle went into this cup clash on the back of a very poor performance in their Saturday game which saw them crash to Lochgelly Albert by 5–1.

They had a much stronger lineup against Ballingry who incidentally had beaten them by 7–1 in a league game at this venue a few weeks ago.

Thistle however paid scant regard to those two awful results and they rocked Ballingry with their cavalier approach to this cup tie.

The Ballingry goal had a flurry of amazing escapes between the 12th and 15th minutes of this game.

Thistle had swept up the park after being on the defensive and almost unbelievably in this three minute spell, Craig Jack, Kevin Pearson and John Anderson all hit the bar with shots that seemed netbound and coupled to this the keeper produced two outstanding saves from Craig Jack and Gerrard Kelly.

Thistle had most of the attacking play after this and in 26 minutes they took a deserved lead, Craig Jack was the scorer.

Craig picked up a cross from Andy Smith and warded off a couple of challenges from defenders as he strode forward and from about 15 yards he rifled a well struck volley into the corner of the net for what was an excellent goal.

Ballingry strived hard after this setback to get back into the game but they didn’t give goalkeeper Gavin Sorley much trouble.

Their only worthwhile effort was a free kick into the goalmouth from Lee Dair which caused a bit of a stramash before it was cleared.

The second half had only been in operation a matter of six minutes when the Fifers were reduced to 10 men when Brian Dempster was red carded after what seemed to be a verbal conflagration with the referee.

Ballingry strangely had their best spell after this incident and had Thistle on the defensive.

Gavin Sorley had twice to make good saves firstly from another Lee Dair free kick and then from a close range effort from striker John Adam.

Thistle got back into an attacking mode and in 75 minutes they went further ahead.

Johnny Brown swung a cross into the heart of the Ballingry penalty box and Neil Gardiner connected with a header which flew into the back of the net to make it 2–0 for Thistle.

There was more woe for Ballingry in 84 minutes when they were further reduced to nine men when their centre half was red carded after bringing Andy Smith down from behind.

Thistle put the icing on the cake when John Anderson made it 3–0 for them in the final minute of the game.

This was a great and well deserved win for Thistle who now meet St Andrews or Hill o’ Beath at home in the semi final.

Jeanfield Swifts had the lions share of the attacking play against Lochgelly and had their finishing been on par with their leading up work they would certainly have come home with a favourable result from this visit to Gardiners Park instead of losing by 2–1.

Swifts came very close to taking the lead twice in the space of a few minutes when Sean Fergus sidestepped a defender and cracked the ball goalwards only to see it come rattling back off the bar with the keeper nowhere.

Sean followed up this 20 yard effort when he chased a ball into the Fifers penalty box where he was brought down by a defender and it looked very much like a penalty.

But to Swifts dismay the referee awarded a free kick to Lochgelly.

The interval was only a couple of minutes away when Lochgelly took the lead.

A long ball out of their defence caught the Swifts out and it left striker Greg Robertson and keeper Andy Mackie in a one to one situation which the striker won and slipped the ball past Mackie as he came off his goalline.

Swifts got back on level terms eight minutes into the second half when Scott Lafferty went down to an innocuous challenge in the penalty box and the referee gave Swifts a penalty from which Tony Holt scored.

Five minutes later Swifts almost took the lead when Mark Caldow met with a cross from Kevin Fowler only to see his powerful header saved by the keeper.

There was only five minutes of the game remaining when Lochgelly were awarded a penalty.

Swifts Andy Mackie brought down Andy Barret and from the resultant spot kick, which Barret took, he scored to give the Fifers a 2–1 lead and despite a desperate push from Swifts in those remaining minutes for the equaliser this goal proved to be the winner.

Luncarty are still on the look out for a secretary. Anyone interested in taking over this post should contact Luncarty chairman, Ian Bannerman, tel 01738 629807 or 07864561857.

TOMORROW’S fixtures: Redwood Leisure Cup quarter final – Hill o’ Beath v Kinnoull; Whyte and Mackay North League – Broughty Athletic v Blairgowrie.

Midweek results: Kingdom Kegs Cup quarter final – Ballingry Rovers 0, Scone Thistle 3. Central League – Lochgelly Albert 2, Jeanfield Swifts 1.