Reaction

“The Wasps” collected their second league victory of the season, their first away from home when they defeated Greenock Morton 2-0 at Cappielow to move up the league table to eighth position. After a first half which saw each side have one good opportunity, in the second half with the rain pouring down although the home side had good possession it was “The Wasps” who had the best opportunities and created the best chances.

It is so important to be able to score the first goal and Alloa had a great chance when Alan Trouten’s cross found Greig Spence in a great position inside the box but the striker headed wide when it looked easier to score. The players stuck to their task and were being brave and looked to go and win the match, playing a good passing game and looking to break when opportunities opened up.

The opening goal came after 73 minutes when Morton defender Gregor Buchanan fouled Dario Zanatta in the box after Dario had drove into the box and got to the bye line, Alan Trouten took the spot kick to put “The Wasps” ahead his 7th goal of the season and his 1st league goal of the season.

The visitors increased their lead on 85 minutes when substitute Jake Hastie was pulled back when breaking into the box by Reghan Tumilty and referee Colin Steven awarded Alloa their second penalty of the game. with Alan Trouten having been substituted by Stevie Hetherington five minutes earlier, Iain Flannigan took the responsibilty to maintain Alloa’s 100% penalty record this season scoring 19 out of 19. “The Wasps” throughly deserved their victory having been the better team on the day with the defence as solid as a rock claiming their fifth shut of the season, and the team looking dangerous on the break, indeed in the closing minutes Dario Zanatta was only denied by a great save by Morton keeper Derek Gaston to “The Wasps” increasing the scoreline.

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the end of the First World War and both Greenock Morton & Alloa Athletic joined by laying wreaths at Cappielow and observing a minutes silence, while a lament was played by local Greenock MSP Stuart McMillan just prior to kick-off.

jim goodwin at cappielow

An excellent three points and I thought it was thoroughly deserved, I thought the players were excellent from start to finish, we have had so many games like that where we have struggled to get the first goal and get done with a sucker punch as we did last week against Dunfermline, but the difference today was that we managed to get that first goal, Morton are a decent side they pumped Partick Thistle here 5-1 so we knew what a tough test it was going to be but the players stuck to the game plan perfectly, frustrated Morton in the first half. We spoke at half-time how we could hit the areas in behind and catch them on the counterattack and I thought the players were excellent and we could have had another couple of goals as well.

I think psychologically it is good to get above Partick Thistle in the league Table, it can be very positive for us and maybe have a negative impact on Partick but it is early days, I still think we should have another four or five points on our league points tally, anybody who has been watching us regularly this season know we have been beat by the odd goal on too many occasions, but that is coming down to the fact of the lack of goals we are scoring ourselves which is putting too much pressure on our back four but I thought our defence were outstanding today. Neil Parry made one great save in the first half and did well on one occasion in second half as well but other than that we were comfortable for large periods of the game.

I thought the referee had a decent game, I thought initially the second penalty was outside the box but I do think the law is if it carries on inside the box then it becomes a penalty, yes we were delighted to get that second one because Morton always looked a threat and went gun ho as soon as we scored the first and they were dangerous on the break, so the second goal allowed us to kill the game a bit and take the pressure off.

Our away record has been excellent and people have made a big thing about us bringing the pitch in at home and it certainly hasn’t worked the way we would have liked it and we have now secured more points away from home. All the credit goes to the players they are the people who have to go out and carry out the game plan.

I have a lot of respect for JJ and Peter Houston, they are a good team they have done great this season so far but I don’t think anyone could argue with the result today. We created many great chances, in the first half Alan Trouten dinks a great ball over to Greig Spence and you would expect “Spenny” to score, he is the most prolific goalscorer we have at the club, he is fantastic in that position, so after missing that chance you do think is it going to be “One of those days” . I said to the plays at half-time, let’s not be content to come away with a 0-0 draw, we go into every game trying to win it and I think that showed today and we deserved the win.