Reaction

“The Wasps” could not spoil Livingston winning the league title at Almondvale on Saturday, although it was the visitors who started the game better and could have been two goals ahead in the opening five minutes, firstly Jordan Kirkpatrick had a shot which came back off the post, before Dylan Mackin’s header also struck the far post but the opening would prove to be so vital and it was an ex Alloa Athletic player, Scott Pittman who struck an unstoppable strike from 30-35 yards to give Livingston the lead against the run of play. Goals change games and Livingston having started very nervously stepped up a gear. The second goal early in the second half gave Alloa a mountain to climb and credit to the team who battled on and Dylan Mackin was rewarded with a headed goal to reduce the deficit. This was just after Liam Buchanan had missed a penalty for Livingston, his effort striking the post. The game ended 2-1 to Livingston and David Hopkin’s side deservedly won the title, ending Alloa’s ten game unbeaten run.

jim goodwin at livingston

Great credit has to go to Livingston today, for winning the league, in the first four or five minutes it could have been so different today, we hit the post twice at 0-0 and then Livingston take the lead when Scott Pittman scores a screamer from 35 yards, there is not a lot you can do about that. We started well but after the first ten minutes we didn’t contribute much, I thought Livingston deserved to win the game and congratulations to them.

Prior to today we had went ten games unbeaten, so the boys were on a great run, they are feeling a bit down in the dressing room just now – listening to the music coming along the corridor with the Livingston boys celebrating, but we can use that as a bit of fuel to drive us on and make sure we finish the season off properly and go into the play-offs with a bit of momentum.

We are sitting second in the table, seven points ahead of the team in third position in Airdrieonians, Livingston were always going to be the team to beat in this division, they are a full time team with a much bigger budget than everyone else and they have deserved to win the league, all credit goes to them but my boys have tried to stay with them all the way but unfortunately towards the end we didn’t find enough but fair play to Livingston, they went and got the job done today. We would have liked to have delayed the celebrations if we could, but it wasn’t to be which is great credit to David Hopkin and his backroom staff his players and we wish them well.

Jordan Kirkpatrick went off because he had a wee niggle in his groin, that is a huge concern, because he is a massive player for us, Frank McKeown pulled up in training in midweek with a calf strain and Iain Flannigan turned his back, so we were missing some key players today, I thought the boys who came in did fine. The main thing now for us at this stage is not to risk players that’s why we took “Kirky” off, we want to make sure firstly we clinch our place in the play-offs and then make sure we will have our best players available when we need them. We will look to bounce back next week.