Reaction

Yesterday’s victory at Central Park was crucial and now sees “The Wasps” move back into eighth position in the league table and looking upwards to catching Dumbarton. On the day both Ben Gordon and Michael Doyle made their 150th first team appearance for the club at Central Park, Barry Smith’s team taking the game to their opponents, Isaac Layne was causing the Cowdenbeath defence all sorts of problems with his direct running and pace. Although Alloa looked to have settled best, a warning just before the half hour mark when Kudus Oyenuga was alert to knock the ball into the net, albeit the flag was already up for offside, as half time approached Jason Marr and Kevin Cawley came closest to opening the scoring, firstly Jason’s header bounced down and over the bar while Kevin’s effort evaded the back post. Twenty minutes into the second half “The Wasps” got the all important opening goal, Isaac Layne’s back flick set up Mark Docherty to volley home a wonderful strike which sent the Alloa visiting support into raptures. The second goal fourteen minutes later was a wonderful solo goal from Kevin Cawley who had worked tirelessly all day. Substitute Greig Spence had a great chance to make it 3-0 but after rounding the home keeper he managed to allow defender Darren Brownlie to get back and knock the ball wide. A crucial win, for “The Wasps”, well deserved on the day.

barry smith at central park

I think you can see what the victory meant to myself and the players, getting these three points, it has been a while coming and although we are delighted with the three points, I thought they were deserved today, but we must continue with that type of grit and determination, I think the boys showed a different side of themselves today, when they battled in, cause normally we would try and get the ball down and play but I think today we showed a different side where we battened down the hatches and worked extremely hard to limit Cowdenbeath to very few chances. The goals were great finishes but it was the player’s hard work which was rewarded, defensively we had been in the right positions, breaking at pace when given the chance, but I am more delighted for the team as a whole that we got the goals, the work that Mark and Kevin put in to create and score the goals, they deserved the goals for their work rate.

It’s another tough game again next week, against Hibernian, however it is now the case, that Alloa Athletic have eleven massive games now between and the end of the season. It will start again against Hibernian next Saturday and I will totally focus on that game before we even start to look at any other game. We have a great squad, there is great team spirit in there was was evident to see today, in the dressing room they are all fighting for each other and that’s important when we are in the position we are but with that three points we can look forward to next week’s game. Isaac Layne did particularly well today, he has come in, he is just a young lad but he is doing well, but I don’t like singling out players, today was all about “Our team performance” and determination coupled by two great goals and it is now about focusing on the Hibernian game now.