Alloa Athletic v Brechin City

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danny lennon after reaching final

We are absolutely thrilled to get to the final, but it certainly was not pleasing the manner in the way we got over the line today and neither are the players to be fair to them, but we must give a great deal of credit to Brechin City, knowing that they would throw absolutely everything at us today and they certainly did that but we done enough to get through which was most important. We certainly didn’t set our stall out to defend  we just want to go out and play our natural game, as I feel when you are holding on to something players start to play within themselves there not used to that situation but all credit to Brechin City, sometimes you have to give the opposition credit, but for the first half hour I thought we were ok, we were playing some ok football but as the game went on a little bit of nerves, a little bit of fear, started to come into our game and I now hope all those fears are now beyond us. I took of Michael Chopra at half-time because I thought we needed a bit more energy in the middle of the pitch which Brechin were dominating with the shape that they had in there, over running Docherty and McCord in there, it was purely a tactical decision to try and get more energy in that area and also a get more quicker support to Liam Buchanan. John Gibson was fantastic, but that’s what goalkeepers are there for, he has been tremendous but as I have said a great deal of credit to Ray McKinnon and his players, we knew they would come knowing they had absolutely nothing to lose, but for our point of view overall the decisions we made today, the amount of time we wanted on the ball – listen the play-offs and come into these games so quickly after competing in a very competitive league plus being part-time it is demanding on these players we have to take that in to account as well but all our focus and attention now is on our recovery and preparation for two very important games against Forfar Athletic. We go into the match in good form, we are on a good run of form, it was the performance I wasn’t happy about today but over the two legs that is what is was about, prior to today’s game I had stressed it was only half-time but we have managed over the two legs to win the tie, disappointed in our level of performance today and  going into the final we will see two teams going into the game in good form and we hope it’s a good final over the two legs for both sets of fans. It looks as if Michael Doyle pulled his hamstring early in today’s match so I had to change the pack a little bit but it was a wonderful opportunity for young David Ferguson coming in there, so playing in a game like that a such a young age and what’s at stake certainly holds him in good stead for the future, a great experience for him.

Ground

Indodrill Stadium
Indodrill Stadium, Alloa