Before our 23 mile, 35 minute journey to the Falkirk stadium, home to current league One Falkirk and our opponents East Stirlingshire we had a friendly v Blackburn Utd, from Blackburn, just south of Bathgate in West Lothian. Our Reserves also had a few friendlies.
First up on Thursday 21st the Reserves beat Burntisland Res 2-0 (Hainey & Downie)
Next we had our friendly with Blackburn, but also the Reserves played Threave Rovers Res
FT Civil Service 2 (Faye 25, Churchill 80) Blackburn Utd 0 Att 21 (6 Away)
Pretty standard 2-0, a Faye header and a Churchill drive. Reverted back to the slightly deeper midfield in the 2nd half, and it felt a bit better so may go with that for the East Stirlingshire game. Will set the standard midfielder as a CM(A) with Underlap to try and get them to bridge the gap to the forward line. Andrew Mackay unfortunately twisted his knee so he’s out for about a week.
The Ressies also picked up a 2-0 win against Threave, youth intake players Colin May & Ross Sharp with the goals.
So to the East Stirlingshire game. They sit in 13th but have won their last 2 games, scoring 8 goals in the process (letting in 5) , Ross Allum with 2 hat-tricks, which for the 4-5-1 is interesting. Ross will be marked by Big Kev, hopefully out of the game.
Garden gets another go up top. The Centre Mid goes back to the DM triangle, Cairney as a DLP looking for long passes, Balfour as a, hopefully, surging CM(A) with underlaps a possibility. Mair is the left Winger, Newall back as the left Wingback due to Chris Barras and his poorly ankle. All the crossers (Wingers and Wingbacks) have been told to aim for the target man, in this case Garden – as we’ve been aiming to the opposite-side winger and only Barras was any good at scoring from these chances. Fingers crossed – we really need to start scoring. I’ve also amended this to Positive after the screenshot.
HT East Stirlingshire 0 Civil Service 1 (Mair 7)
A lively start, where Kelly should have done better from a promising position in the 4th minute. The breakthrough cam 3 minutes later, with a Kelly cross messed up by Greene for East Stirlingshire, Andy Mair being on the spot to finish. Cairney stung the keepers hands in the 12th minute and all was looking good in the driving rain (5C for the 30th March is pretty Baltic). East Stirlingshire came back into it at the end of the half but we held solid, playing the ball around nicely. 1-0. News from East Kilbride was also good – losing 1-0 to Whitehill Welfare, and BSC were 0-0 with Edusport, so currently we are 3 points clear 🙂 Really good passing completion and possession. I’m allowing Tom Kelly to cross and shoot more – he seems to get in really good positions a lot, so lets use that. Lets keep it going – I feel we need a second.
FT East Stirlingshire 0 Civil Service 1 (Mair 7) Att 222 (2 Away)
A very quick start to the half from East Stirlingshire but we weathered the early pressure. Hainey & Churchill came on for Garden & Balfour and we saw the game out – 1-0, a bit stressful but in the end a very workman-like performance. Centre-Back McConnell with a 7.4 was MOTM…
Its in our hands Ladles & Jellyspoons!! 2 league games left, and if results go right we could be league chamipons after our next game. Edusport’s 87th minute goal could be huge for both us and BSC. East Kilbride really need us to lose the last 2 and for BSC Glasgow to only get a draw in all reality. We’ve only conceded 10 goals in 26 league games this season #solid
We now have 11 days off before our South Challenge Cup Semi at home to Bonnyrigg Rose – lets try not to get any injuries in the mean time!!