Reaction

For the second time in recent months “The Wasps” were to lose out in a Penalty-Shoot. Dick Campbell’s newly promoted Arbroath side started the game very brightly and were rewarded in 16th minute when new signing Blair Yule was on hand to head home a Danny Denholm cross. The Wasps stormed back after losing the opening goal, Andy Graham was very unlucky on the half hour when his header just went wide, this after he had already been denied by the woodwork. Arbroath themselves looked lively and were a threat going forward with efforts from Doris, Linn and ex Wasp Omar Kader.

In the second half “The Wasps” had the lions share of possesion as Arbroath defended deeper looking to hold on to their early goal. The introduction of Adam Martin and Thomas Grant on the hour added to the dominance and a goal looked only a matter of time. The Wasps were rewarded for their perseverance with a deserved equaliser in the closing minutes, Frank McKeown scoring his first goal for the club with a fierce shot across goal.

Both teams shared one point each, but there was still a bonus point for the team which won the penalty shoot out. Scott Taggart, Steven Hetherington, Iain Flannigan & Andy Graham all scored to give “The Wasps” a chance of victory at 4-3, Kris Renton however was denied by a save from visiting keeper Ricky Gomes. Adam Martin regained the lead for “The Wasps” but in sudden death Thomas Grant’s effort was too straight and David Gold had the honour to clinch the bonus point for Arbroath, which he completed.

jim goodwin after penalty defeat in betfred cup

It was a disappointing way to lose the game tonight, the boys are gutted in the dressing room, but when you gift teams a soft goal of a start it gives them something to hang onto, they made it difficult for us tonight, we had plenty of the ball and possession but found them very hard to break down at times, but in fairness to the boys they kept going and it looked like one of these games where we could have been here all night and never scored, we probably didn’t work their goalkeeper enough, although we had good possession we lacked a bit of creativity in the final third, the goal was a great goal from Frank up to then we had looked most likely to score from set plays where we had looked dangerous with great quality coming in from Iain Flannigan and Alan Cook.

Then on to penalties………..which is our second time in a couple of months, we know it is a lottery at the end of the day and the two we missed weren’t hit as well as the lads would have liked both normally strike a dead ball well, so I think they will want another crack at it. Credit to Arbroath, they were organised resilient and they gained the extra point. In our position now we can only hope Ross County win all their games, convincingly to do us a favour, they would need to beat Hibs and then we would need to win our final two games and see what seven points would give us, I’m not even sure seven points would be enough to see us through as one of the best runners up? There is no chance we can win the group now but we still hold a chance of finishing second and sneak in.

Initially we feared the worse for Craig Malcolm on Saturday it was a nasty tackle and the reaction was it was a serious injury, however he had the x ray on Sunday morning and thankfully there is no fracture or break but some ligament damage which might keep him sidelined a couple of weeks but possibly four weeks, Craig is a strong boy and will want to get back involved as soon as possible.

The boys will be back in for training on Friday night, have the weekend off and be ready to face Montrose next Tuesday evening.