Match Report

Elgin City 2 – 2 Stenhousemuir 

Stenhousemuir made the long trip north to play our second last game of the year.

The previous meeting saw Elgin take a 2-1 victory at Ochilview and revenge was definitely on the cards.

Stephen Swift made 3 changes to starting lineup with Mikey Miller, Ross Forbes and Jordan Tapping all coming into the starting lineup. Mikey Anderson and James Lyon dropped to the bench with Nicky Jamieson out injured.

The Warriors started strong and it was Mikey Miller who picked up his first goal for Stenhousemuir. Nat Wedderburn played a lever pass inside to the on-loan midfielder and his shot was deflected up and over the keeper to make it 0-1 to The Warriors.

The visitors didn’t hold back and it didn’t tale long to double their lead. Tam Orr got on the end of a David Wilson free kick and cushioned the ball towards Daz Christie. He drove down the right wing and clipped in a cross which the defence couldn’t clear. Eventually it fell to Tam Orr and clever finish from the striker allowed him to pick up his 8th goal of the season. 21 minutes into the game, and it’s 0-2 to Stenhousemuir.

There wasn’t much in the way of chances for either side. Tam Orr did take a stiff knee to the backside which resulted in his substitution, to be replaced by James Lyon.

Despite that setback, The Warriors had the game under control until the 36th minute when Sean Crighton was judged to had fouled in the box. It took the referee a while to decide what to do and eventually, he pointed to spot. Hester then stepped up and put the ball down the middle to make it 1-2.

Elgin had a chance to equalise before the break, but Div Wilson managed to save the shot to keep The Warriors ahead at the interval.

HALF TIME 1-2

Into the 2nd half and The Warriors had several chances to pull away. Daz Christie was one on one with the keeper and he managed to curl his shot wide.

At the other end, the always dangerous Kane Hester was looking to double his tally as he turned Sean Crighton in the box, only to see his shot hit the side netting.

The home side then found themselves down to 10 men inside 80 minutes. Euan O’Reilly was clean through and he was pulled to the ground by Grivosti. The referee had no choice, and it was a straight red for the Elgin defender.

Into injury time and Elgin City had one last free kick. With the keeper up the ball was played in and Darryl McHardy got on the end and fired his header into the back of the net to equalise right at the death to make it 2-2.

A point keeps The Warriors in the hunt for a playoff place, but there were chances to take all 3 and the visitors will be disappointed not to be going back down the A9 with a win.

FULL TIME 2-2

POST-MANAGER INTERVIEW

HOW IS THE MOOD IN THE CAMP THIS WEEK? 

I think we need to keep the morale up fro the boys. We should’ve got 3 points as we dominated the game for large periods and I think that’s the easy part. You give the players the positives, if we continue to play like that, and cut out the mistakes, then we’ll win more games than not, but we need to take care of the defensive lapses. If we do that, we’ll create chances, score more goals and keep more clean sheets.

ELGIN CITY HAVE A GRASS PITCH, HOW DOES THIS AFFECT US?

We’ve prepared for the last 2 grass games [against Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath] by training at Dalziel Park in  Motherwell and  training on grass which has helped. The game away to Stranraer we weren’t prepared and we didn’t play well on the grass. So i felt that training at Dalziel Park would give us better preparation. You’re wearing different boots, you’re moving different, so I think the Thursday night really helps us prepare and that’s been the case against Stirling Albion and Cowdenbeath, so hopefully that continues on Saturday.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM ELGIN ?

We can expect a team that’s good on the counter and transition. They can keep the ball when they get it in low areas where they have a good striker in Kane Hester. So when you do attack them, they’re compact and hard to break down and they can break at pace and he is a real danger and one that we’ve highlighted to stop on Saturday. On that though, they have been on a bad run away from home, but if you look at the last few results, they’ve beaten Cowdenbeath and drew with Edinburgh, so they’re difficult to beat at home, and we fully expect it to mbe a tough game.