Reaction

In Sunday’s live BBC Alba televised match, “The Wasps” put on an excellent display, especially in the first half with their second 2-1 victory over title chasing Ayr United this season. Jim Goodwin wanted his side to go into the end of season Play-Off games with good momentum and were never going to make it easy for Ian McCall’s side, who have now lost their last two league matches at a vital stage in the season, with Raith Rovers now one ahead going into the final matches next Saturday.

The first half belonged to Jim Goodwin’s side, Iain Flannigan got the opening goal after 21 minutes finishing off after great lead up play. Twelve minutes it was 2-0 after Callum Crane pounced on a defensive mistake by Andy Geggan, to score in back to back games, having scored the winner against Forfar Athletic the previous week.

Ayr United manager Ian McCall made a double substitution at half-time looking to get back in a game in which their large travelling support had little to cheer about. Indeed they started the second half very positively and gave themselves hope when Craig Moore scored his 26th goal of the season only five minutes into the second period.

Alloa weathered the storm and gradually grew back into the game, however referee Greg Aitken stunned the home support when he awarded a penalty kick to Ayr United after 76 minutes when he deemed David Ferguson had been fouled in the box.

Justice appeared to be done when Craig Moore’s penalty sailed high over the Alloa crossbar, with the Ayr United fans in disbelief. Alloa themselves were now looking to extend their lead and Kris Renton looked to have done just that running on to a Stevie Hetherington throughball but the officials gave offside.

In a nervy finish and three extra minutes of time added on “The Wasps” secured their victory and will look to keep the momentum going next week against Raith Rovers at Starks Park.

jim goodwin after the tv win

It certainly was a game of two halves I suppose as people would say, I thought we were excellent in the first half for the majority of the time, dominated possession and scored two very good goals especially the first one. The build up for the first goal starts over at Jon Robertson on his side of the pitch at right back and we work it down the other side, a great pass from Stevie Hetherington and fantastic run from Kevin and then “Flanny” put the quality finish to it to open the scoring. The second goal I’m sure Ayr United will be disappointed, Andy Greggan nine times out of ten heads it away but I have to give great credit to Callum Crane for being there, high up the pitch and being as positive as he was and it was a great finish.

At half-time we spoke about what Ian McCall would be saying in his dressing room and the kind of reaction that he would be looking from his players and we told the boys what to expect, we knew they would come flying at us in the second half because at the end of the day they are trying to win the league. I thought we caused a lot of the pressure on ourselves at the start of the second half, it is the only negative I can take out of the afternoon, the opening five minutes of the second period. We spoke about not giving them a sniff and not playing silly balls into the middle of the pitch and we did that and that’s where their goal came from, but once we had weathered that storm in the opening ten minutes of the second half I thought we found our way back into the game and managed to create some chances of our own.

Ayr United are a very good side, we knew they would have chances, we know the quality that they possess in the forward areas, I thought for the majority of game we defended well and managed some of their bigger players as well as we could do. I was really disappointed with the penalty to be honest and I’m not one for publicly slagging off referees, I know they can make mistakes, but that was a mistake, I do not know if it was one of those ones where Ayr United have a league to try and win and he doesn’t want to make a colossal decision which costs them the league, so maybe the easier option was to give it because we are not playing for much at the moment but at the same time we want to win the game, it was soft that’s all I can say I have watched it back and if you are going to give penalties for that you will be getting half a dozen a game, I suppose justice was done in the end when Craig Moore missed the penalty and we managed to hold on for a 2-1 win. Ayr United will be bitterly disappointed, that it is now out of their hands, but we will go to Kirkcaldy to face Raith Rovers and I can assure Ian McCall and his team that we will be as professional next Saturday as we were today – we won’t be handing anybody anything, we will give a good account of ourselves next week.