Reaction

“The Wasps” produced a four star display to defeat Ayr United 4-0 in the William Hill Scottish Cup 3rd Round replay at Indodrill Stadium, Alloa. Barry Smith’s team started the game at a high tempo, ex Ayr United player, Jonathan Tiffoney was unfortunate not to open the scoring as early as the 5th minute when his long range effort came crashing off the cross bar. The deadlock was broken in the 24th minute when another ex Ayr United player, Liam Buchanan, scored his sixth goal in the past seven games. Daryll Meggatt headed in number two before Mark Docherty made it 3-0 within the space of eight minutes.

Tiffoney then had a great chance to increase the lead as the home team pushed for more goals. Ayr United manager Mark Roberts made three chances for the start of the second half to try and halt the scoring. Mark Docherty scored his second goal of the evening just after the hour mark curling an effort in at the far post. This now sets up a busy period for “The Wasps” – Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday followed by four home games – 22nd Nov v. Falkirk (H), 29th Nov v. Hibernian (H) 3rd Dec v. Rangers (H) & 6th Dec v. Dumbarton (H).

barry smith after defeating ayr united

It was a good professional performance, I thought we kept the ball very well and scored at the right times. It was good to get the first goal but even before that we had hit the bar and the post, we certainly had chances even before we took the lead. Another clean sheet was important but the team overall is working hard all over the park to make sure that we were in the right areas. The players will take the confidence from the Livingston game, from the defensive display, where we dug in and defended well and scoring goals tonight gives us the other side of confidence going into any game. The players don’t like conceding goals and Jason Marr’s block at the end typifies our determination to keep a clean sheet and credit to the players for going for the whole ninety plus minutes of the game to prevent Ayr United from scoring. We have now earned ourselves another home tie and that’s all you can ask for in the Scottish Cup – but it will be another difficult tie against Hibernian, but we will look forward to it when it comes around. Although we defeated Hibernian earlier in the season they were still finding their feet, but they will still know it will not be an easy place to come and we will make sure it is difficult for Hibernian.