Management thoughts on a hard earned win against Lothian.

Posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Mike says –

“Despite being a “nothing” fixture Sam and I were concerned before the game last night on a number of counts. Firstly we were worried about a reaction to the final at Tynecastle on Sunday both in a physical and a mental sense. There were also problems behind the scene at Lothian and a number of younger players were in their squad. We had to point out to our players that 7 of the team who beat Edinburgh Uni on Saturday were in the line up along with Alan McDonaugh and Conan McDiriarmid who are regulars in the team. This wasn’t going to be a run out against a team of boys. Lastly I’d told Alex Cunningham (who’s working in Athens) that we’d need Jordan plus one other Under 19 to give us a full compliment on the bench. This was before I found out Kevin Sivewright had an ankle knock and we later on had Mark Burn’s late call off due to work commitments to contend with. I made up the outfield numbers on the bench and that in itself was a distraction. 

Despite Hutch putting water on the park for most of the day the lack of rain recently gave us a hard, fiery surface. Too many first half passes went astray yet we still managed to hit the bar and force Kevin Swain into a number of top class saves.  The second half was better and we ran out well worth our two goal advantage.  Archie was back on the goal trail and Donal didn’t need the keepers help unlike his last goal at St Mark’s Park. Lothian lost their keeper after Ross scored but the young deputy had several great saves from both teams. Young Jordan got another start with Chris Smith and Andrew Sinclair also getting a run out for the last quarter.

We now count our knocks, strains, holiday and work commitments before shaping a team for Peffermill on Thursday.  Robbie and Omar are still unavailable, the game is too early for Sivvy, the Under 19’s have a cup semi on Sunday so Jordan will train with them  and we’ll let Cloudie’s hernia settle down for the weekend. Mark Burns and Jonathan Seeley should be available along with Sean Wringe and Liam Donnelly from the Under 19’s. More on the Uni game tomorrow morning.”

Mike