Reaction

The Wasps hopes of progressing in this season’s William Hill Scottish Cup looked to be dashed after going 3-0 behind early in the second half to SPFL Championship side Dunfermline Athletic, however once again Jim Goodwin’s men fought back to 3-2 after Greig Spence scored his 18th goal of the season for a tense finish with hopes of a reply which looked unlikey earlier in the match. Alloa’s last opportunity fell to captain Graeme Holmes, who had been outstanding in midfield, his net bound shot however in injury time struck Dunferline Athletic player Nat Wedderburn and was cleared upfield and “The Pars” progressed to the fifth round where they will now meet Hamilton Accies.

Both Alloa Athletic’s recent signing Frank McKeown and substitute Stefan McCluskey can be pleased with their contribution – Stefan McCluskey scoring on his debut and Frank McKeown being named sponsors “Man of the Match”.

Special mention must also go the Kevin Cawley who made his 200th first team appearance for the club in a game once again he gave everything.

jim goodwin after scottish cup defeat

We are disappointed, we knew the kind of threat Dunfermline would have, we spoke about during the week how dangerous they are on the break, it was quite an end to end game but goals change games. It’s an old cliché again – the first goal was disappointing, Gavin Reilly gets the space to run, Neil Parry makes a great save but unfortunately it falls out to Nicky Clark who managed to tuck it away, losing the second goal right on half-time was a bit of a killer blow. Two nil down at half-time we talked about the next goal being important to get back in the game but if Dunfermline were to get it, it would be an uphill task, from their  point of view Gavin Reilly did well and Joe Cardle made a great run of him and it was a hell of a strike, nothing you could do with that one.

As always this team has shown in past weeks when we go behind they never give in and they deserve a lot of credit for keeping going right to the end, we scored a couple of half decent goals ourselves but unfortunately ran out of time at the end. You hope when you make substitutions they can make an impact and Stefan had a positive impact, when you sign players you hope that they do well and Frank McKeown out other new signing, goes and gets “Man of the Match” and Stefan comes on and scores so that’s the impact we are hoping from the new signings, just disappointed for them that they weren’t on the winning side in the game.

The cup competitions are great and we have already been to two Quarter-Finals this season we would have liked to go a bit further, we fancied ourselves when the draw was made but credit to Dunfermline and we wish them well in the next round now our made focus is on the league which was our sole ambition at the start of this season we want to get out of this league by hook or by crook.