Reaction

Gayfield Park in Arbroath in recent times has always been a difficult fixture for “The Wasps”, indeed we have to go back to 2nd October, 2004, before Allan Maitland’s time as manager to recall our last victory at the venue, winning 3-0 thanks to a Stuart Callaghan hat-trick. Once again on Saturday we found the venue and the conditions near impossible to play in. Last season we lost 4-1 and 1-0, so two draws this season looks like an improvement, however in December we managed to throw away a two goal lead, but on Saturday in truth chances on both sides were limited due to the horrendous wind which made ball control near impossible. With six games left we still have a lot of work to do but it is better to be on top than in the chasing pack.

allan maitland at gayfield

The trouble sometimes when you come up to Arbroath is the wind ruins the game, today was a classic example, very similar to the game we played here last year when the wind ruined everything, today for us in the first half we had the wind at our backs but we didn’t show enough urgency in the game until the last ten minutes of the first half, in the second half Arbroath had the wind and they put us under a bit more pressure – but neither team could play football in the conditions, the game was ruined by it – they had two good efforts which our goalkeeper saved and we had one when Darren Hill made a save late in the second half. The difference this year is, when you are not playing well you dig in and take what you can from the game and move on to the next fixture and that’s what we have done. It is an improvement on last years game up here in similar conditions when we lost 1-0, we are pleased with a point and move on to next Saturday when we hope the conditions will be a wee bit better, we couldn’t pass the ball, we couldn’t keep the ball and if we can’t do that we can’t win games of football. We had to defend properly which I thought we did really well and we just move on to next game, simple as that – the weather was terrible and the game was terrible!