So our ridiculously bad record in this competition continues. As I recall we have only once played more than two rounds in it in any particular year, and of course that time we made it to the final.
Also this was up in Peterhead and they pretty much had our number over the past few seasons. Plus the team was ….. I believe the phrase is ‘heavily rotated’.
Ah well.
Time to concentrate on the league. (At least until the real cup comes around.)
Posted in Dumbarton FC at 20:00 on 1 September 2024
SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 31/8/24.
Well. Here we are again.
Yet another draw.
And yet again coming from behind. Twice this time.
We were the better looking side in the early exchanges. Indeed Kelty really didn’t have an attack worthy of the name until they scored, a quick break showing an alarming fragility in our back line, waltzed through as if it were not there.
They looked extremely confident on the ball after that with a great awareness of where their teammates were and making seemingly blind passes. They were also very well organised defensively, always able to get a man in to make the crucial tackle or block. And if that failed their goalkeeper managed to make the save.
Not until the 43rd minute, after a few corners from the left had produced nothing, one from the right found Mark Durnan able to head in at the far post.
The second half followed a similar pattern. They scored when we lost the ball in midfield and worked the ball well into the area where the free guy stuck it through Brett Long’s legs.
It looked like the unbeaten run would end but then another Craig McGuffie corner was again headed in by Mark Durnan. That could almost have been a response to the immediately prior announcement of Durnan as man of the match. Personally I thought he was uncomfortable on the left of the centre back pairing.
Still, a draw against the team at the top of the league can’t be bad.
So it’s five league draws in a row now to start off the campaign (albeit with a Challenge Cup win against Berwick mixed in.) That sequence surely must be a club record.
But draws don’t get you up the league table. Not in these days of three points for a win. We really need to get one of those on the board.
There’s a break next week for the next round of the Challenge Cup, a long trip to Peterhead, before we’re down at Annan in a fortnight.
Another draw. Four in a row in the league now. And again we had to come from behind, this time from two goals down, Michael Ruth and Matty Shiels doing the business. Perhaps we should have won, though, as it seems Michael Ruth missed a penalty earlier in the second half than he finally scored.
I see we’re top scorers in the league with 7. We’ll need to begin stopping them at the other end though.
A double dose of nostalgia today. The 90s and Boghead.
Boghead was of course the ground where the mighty Sons of the Rock used to play before they moved to The Rock in 2000. At that point it was the oldest ground in Scotland that had been in continuous use.
This clip shows the new “Postage Box” stand, erected in 1980. This held 303 people rather than just 80 in the old one.
This is a competition in which our record is truly dire. The worst of any club to play in it, in fact.
We do sometimes win our first tie but usually not our second. (The only time we did do so we went on to the final. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)
Nevertheless, a 4-0 win (all goals in the first half, Craig McGuffie with two, Michael Ruth and David Wilson the others) is not to be sneezed at. Even if our opponents are two levels below us they have still had an impressive start to their season.
Well it looks like we can score (Michael Ruth with a brace and Jinky Hilton doing the honours) but we also need to stop them.
However, this may have been a good point. Alloa finished 3rd in this division last season and we were without Mouhamed Niang in midfield due to his sending-off last week.
It could be a tight division though, with every point a hostage.
We had more or less done ourselves justice in the first half and even got the ball in the net but Michael Ruth was offside. (Well I thought it was Ruthie but the club’s website says it was Carlo Pignatiello.)
Two minutes inro the second half and the wheels began to fall off. Their pace got them in behind our right and it was slotted past Brett Long. Three minutes after that it was game over. I didn’t actually see the build up because some idiot scoming back from somewhere or other stood in front of me for longer than necessary – this in a sparsely populated away end – before sitting down again.
Thereafter it was more than an uphill struggle. Our substitutions were copious and by the time all five had been made our defensive organisation had gone completely. Their last three goals were the result. In general they looked faster, fitter, stronger and better passing angles than us. They are full time though and at this stage of the season that makes a big difference.
As to us new signing Mouhamed Niang looked good in midfield and Ruthie ploughed his usual lonely furrow up front. His replacement, latest signing Joel Mumbongo, did not have much time on the pitch to be able to make a judgement on him.
