Reaction

It was an unchanged Alloa Athletic starting eleven to face Queen’s Park at Hampden Park, the same eleven whom had defeated East Fife 4-1 the previous week, while Queen’s looked to build on their 1-0 victory over Albion Rovers at Cliftonhill the previous week.

In recent times “The Wasps” have done well at Hampden Park, having to go back to September, 2008 when we last lost at the ground, but yesterday’s 4-0 victory with four different scorers and a clean sheet helps our great start to the second quarter of the season with two back to back victories.

Alloa had a lot of possession but had to be patient to get the important opening goal of the match, the impressive PJ Crossan scoring his second goal in back to back games. Queen’s didn’t offer much going forward and it was the final minute of the first half when they offered anything in front of goal, substitute Sean Burns effort blocked and cleared by the Alloa defence. Fifteen minutes into the second half after Queen’s best spell in the game it was that man PJ Crossan who raced clear down the left hand side of the pitch and crossed for Craig Malcolm to score and make it 2-0.

Alloa pushed forward and looked to increase their lead rather than sit on a 2-0 lead and were rewarded with two further goals both headers from set piece deliveries from Iain Flannigan. In 69 minutes Andy Graham headed past Willie Muir in the home goal although the keeper will not want to look at how easy the header went through his hands.

Daryll Meggatt replaced PJ Crossan for the final fifteen minutes after the young Celtic player picked up “a dead leg” as a precaution. Adam Martin was fouled out on the left wing and again Iain Flannigan produced a pinpoint delivery from the free kick which allowed Daryll Meggatt to head home number four.

jim after victory at hampden

Delighted from start to finish the lads were excellent, the manner of the goals as well, there were some really good goals, delighted for PJ, two goals back to back for the wee man, it was also good for Craig Malcolm to score an important goal for himself as well.  It was a really professional performance, we knew we would have the majority of the ball and it was just a matter of how we dealt with that. We were patient in our build up, we spoke about moving the ball a bit quicker at half-time but from start to finish I thought we credited the win.

People will look at the score line and believe it is one of best performances of the season and it is up there but no game is a walk in the park – Gus always has his teams organised and hard to beat, you don’t just turn up and play that way the players deserve great credit, they trained well during the week, we knew we would have to be at our best to get the result, the first goal is so important and vital regardless of what level you are playing at, we have struggled to get that in recent weeks, so it was really pleasing to get ahead today and build on it, I thought we were very solid at the back in defence, which is pleasing especially gaining a clean sheet.

I knew Gus would get fired into his boys at half-time and I knew they would give a reaction but I thought we managed that part of the game particularly well and so it through and as soon as we get the second goal you could see it taking the wind out of their sails. The deliveries from Iain Flannigan at set pieces from dead balls, he is on a par with the boys at the top level of the game, it was all about the delivery and quality of the balls into the box, it doesn’t matter how big the lads are going into box, if the quality is not great you will never score, Iain very rarely lets you down – the second delivery especially for Daryll Meggatt’s goal, as a defender it is impossible to defend against such was quality of ball into the box.

I do not like picking out individuals because all fourteen of the players used today played their part, I even had to list myself today, squad we are not as healthy as I would like and again we had to play some guys out of position but the adapt because that’s what good players do.

At this stage in the season the table doesn’t bother me, we have set ourselves targets, we know where we need to be points wise and come January if we are to be serious about competing at the top of the table which is where this group of players what to be, we concentrate on our own job but I am delighted with our start to the second quarter – two wins out of two but we will have another difficult game next Saturday against Airdrie.