No Joy at Easter Road

We lined up with five across the middle in an attempt to prevent the creativity of the opposition from having a free rein on the game. Kerr, McGarry and Fitzpatrick formed the centre and for the most part we held the line.

Kick off

We had the best chance of the first half in twelve minutes when excellent work from McGarry on the right allowed him to deliver a deep cross to Foran who was lurking at the back post. The keeper could only watch as his header from a very tight angle looped and just failed to find the postage stamp corner. Despite lots of possession Smith had little to do in the first half.

Corrigan clears

McGarry enjoyed his role and his hard work broke up much of the Hibs' build up. Murphy had the job of marshalling Sproule out of the game and he coped well with the task. In fact he was so successful that the speedy winger switched wings early in the second half and that was to prove to be our undoing.

 

We were playing up the slope in the second period and Malpas switched Darren Smith for Malloy at the restart. On the hour McBride came on for Fitzpatrick and within minutes he had the chance to put us in the lead.

McDonald, the lone forager, worked some magic to set Foran up with a good chance from the middle of the box. The blocked effort fell to McBride on the left half of the goal. From the away stand at the other end of the park it looked like he must find the net but, again, a the keeper blocked the shot.

That was it as far as we were concerned. We proceeded to lose two identical goals in the last twenty minutes. Sproule had the beating of Corrigan and he delivered nice passes for Brown in seventy minutes and then Benji in injury time to seal the win.

We battled well against a hard working Hibs team which probably deserved the win. There was some surprise that we did not introduce one of the two strikers from the bench as we entered the last fifteen minutes. It looked unlikely that we would pull level with only the tiring McDonald up front.