Arbroath 2 Motherwell 3

The management team

A quick scan through the team lists suggests that this was pretty near Arbroath's first team and this makes the narrow win a good result for our kids. A couple of trialists were on show - Graham Mathie, son of Ross Mathie the Scotland U20 manager, was at right back while striker Ian Russell was trying to tempt us into rescuing him from Ibrox.

Arbroath made a good start and it took a superb save from Francois DuBourdeau to touch a shot onto the post. However, we began to take control of the game and played some lovely passing football. We took the lead in ten minutes when David Clarke raced down the left and his cut back allowed Darren Jack to slam home. It didn't take long for us to double our lead and this came when Kinniburgh bulleted home Russell's corner.

William Kinniburgh's first goal for the 'Well

The home side weren't willing to roll over though and they pulled one back after a scramble in our box. Our two goal lead was restored before the break and this time it was the impressive Russell who slammed home Clarke's square ball.

Arbroath had been out-played for most of the half and it looked like manager John Brownlie gave them pelters in his team talk. They were a much hungrier team in the second period and forced us onto the back foot for the rest of the match.

John McGlashan was giving our young defence a hard time and his strikers instinct had him in the right place to smash home after DuBourdeau had made a good save from a corner.

DuBourdeau made some solid saves during the game but his ability to deal with cross balls has to be questioned once again. He also had a very lucky escape when he brought down McGlashan after mis-controlling a back pass. The resultant free kick was blocked by the wall and Arbroath's last chance had gone. We should have had wrapped things up by this time but David Clarkson headed wide after being picked out by Mathie.

Considering this was our U21s up against a reasonable First Division side, this was a very acceptable performance and a pleasing win. The two trialists did themselves no harm at all and Ian Russell in particular should be pleased with his efforts. One interesting note, the game was only forty minutes each way due to the lack of working floodlights

The build up is over, all thoughts can move onto Livingston - can we keep up our sensational form or are we due for a crash? Time will tell.

Team:
DuBordeau
Mathie Quinn Kinniburgh Bell
Black (Clarkeson) McDonald Fagan
Russell (Barkey) Jack (Wright) Clarke (Crawley)
Subs: Wright Ewings Crawley Barkey Clarkson
Arbroath 2 Motherwell 3