Reaction

Alloa Athletic defeated local neighbours Stenhousemuir 1-0 at Ochilview to continue their good start to the new season. The only goal of the game was scored by Bryan Prunty, his 4th goal already this season after only 13 minutes when he pounced on a short pass back. “The Wasps” restricted the home side to few chances in the game but should have extended their lead to put a fairer reflection on the scoreline long before the end. In the first half home keeper Ally Brown did well to deny a Scott Walker header and in the second half Michael Dunlop saw his header come back off the post with the keeper beaten, and later substitute Jamie Hay had a great effort saved late in the game, once again the benefit of having strengh on the bench helped Alloa win this game with all three substitutes making telling contributions.

allan maitland after stenhousemuir victory

We have started this season really open and have been scoring freely but also been losing goals at the other end, today we have just tried to tighten things up, we brought John Grant in recognising that Stenhousemuir themselves have had a great start to the season and I thought we started the game really well, pressed the game and merited our goal, albeit a mistake by the Stenhousemuir defender but a great finish by Bryan Prunty and with the strikers we have at this club, if we can keep clean sheets we have a great chance and today was the first time this season we have had a really professional performance, in the second half even although we gave them a lot of the ball and playing 4-4-1 at the end I can’t remember anytime they got through us, anytime they got in behind us, thought we defended really well. The save by Stephen Robertson right on half time was crucial and in the second half we sorted things out, Scott Walker & Billy Gibson were excellent but as a team game today they all worked really hard and again the substitutes played their part, Andy Scott, Jim Lister and Jamie Hay came on and helped add their support, at times you will need to go away from home and grind out results and that’s exactly what we did today, when we got a hold of the ball we showed a lot of composure from the edge of our box until their 18 yard line bit didn’t show enough composure in final quarter of pitch, but it’s a great result for us and makes the start of the season a fantastic start, seven points out of nine having played two games away from home, so I am really very pleased. This was a great win we stamped our authority on the game, killed it, a professional performance which fully merited our 1-0 victory.

john coughlin – stenny manager

To be perfectly honest I think we were non competitive today, we normally put teams under pressure, we want the ball and show some composure in our play, we had plenty of possession of the ball especially in the second half when Alloa went one up front and we had the ball as much as you could like but its what you do with it , Stephen Robertson had a few saves to make but not any more than our goalkeeper in the game. Our start to the game was very poor, or concentration levels were terrible in the first ten minutes, but today I just never had the feeling we were the team to go and turn things round, we made changes at half time but it didn’t really effect the game. Some of the Alloa players had really good games today, Scott Walker was excellent and did really well for them, but we should be doing better at home, and we know we can do better, but I didn’t get the feeling there was that enthusiasm to go and turn the game around and that was disappointing, we lacked spark today. Alloa scored a goal of our mistake when Gart Thom was short with a pass back, it gave Bryan Prunty the chance and he is one of the last people on the planet you would want to a chance like that, so that kind of summed up the start of the game we had, it is a local derby so there should be a bit of pride and passion shown and I thought today we were found wanting in that today.