Reluctant Hero Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Thought there would have been a thread started on this game by now considering it is one of the more intriguing ties of the round. Can the Highland League champions live with a League One side? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David W Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Home advantage might help but we were fairly comfortably in beating them last season in the Scottish Cup. They couldn't live with our pace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFC1884 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Intriguing? In what manner? Can't say I've spoke to anyone who is genuinely excited or looking forward to this tie. A regional round with a 212 mile distance between the teams. Warriors to play Brora off the park, Brora to kick Warriors off the park. Warriors to win 2-0 with Grehan, Hodge and McMillan all scoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilly Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Camel trek to play an absolute gang in a meaningless cup game. Buzzing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
callum-ayr Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Intriguing? In what manner? Can't say I've spoke to anyone who is genuinely excited or looking forward to this tie. A regional round with a 212 mile distance between the teams. Warriors to play Brora off the park, Brora to kick Warriors off the park. Warriors to win 2-0 with Grehan, Hodge and McMillan all scoring. You might get someone soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo99 Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Jack Hamilton in goal, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Brora take the lead in ET. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudge Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 This could be good in the long term. Hopefully hammers home we are short on quality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cove-Rangers-Loon Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Intriguing? In what manner? Can't say I've spoke to anyone who is genuinely excited or looking forward to this tie. A regional round with a 212 mile distance between the teams. Warriors to play Brora off the park, Brora to kick Warriors off the park. Warriors to win 2-0 with Grehan, Hodge and McMillan all scoring. So that would have been a 3-0 guess then? Hahah always thought Stenny fans were overconfident Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilly Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 No it would have been 2-0 obv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clayhole Blue Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Intriguing? In what manner? Can't say I've spoke to anyone who is genuinely excited or looking forward to this tie. A regional round with a 212 mile distance between the teams. Warriors to play Brora off the park, Brora to kick Warriors off the park. Warriors to win 2-0 with Grehan, Hodge and McMillan all scoring. Top post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strathman Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Thought 7/2 Brora was massive considering Formartine beat a couple of league teams last season. Brora have Grant Munro and Ross Tokeley in their defence who played SPL football until very recently. Still lost my bet though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFC1884 Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 So that would have been a 3-0 guess then? Hahah always thought Stenny fans were overconfident We've got a winner!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebonce Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Not long home from this game. I was toying with the Ross v Nairn County friendly or Elgin v Stirling Albion, but I hadn't been to Dudgeon Park before and fancied seeing how Brora would fare against a middle of the road League 1 side. Judging from two live games I've seen from Brora in the last year - including this one - I have absolutely no doubt that they would hold their own in League 2, despite some obvious flaws and an ageing defence. I think they would have been a better proposition had Richard Hart been playing because they lacked his guile in midfield - I'm not up to speed with them so I don't even know if he's registered and just injured or working, or if he's retired. Brora played a fast, direct 4-4-2 with Sid Mackay dropping off Zander Sutherland, as they typically do. Stenhousemuir went 4-2-3-1 with Kirs Faulds and Bryan Hodge at the back of midfield, with Seam Dickson as the #10 flanked by Josh Watt & Jamie Reid. I think Scott Booth wanted Stenny to have a slow build up play, with the centre-backs staying short and very wide to collect the ball from the keeper Hamilton, but Hamilton wasn't having it in the first half and mostly played long. He does have a great throw on him though. Brora didn't let Stenhousemuir settle at all during the first half. The tempo was set in the first ten minutes when Ross McMillan was caught dawdling on the ball in the left-back area and then Faulds was dispossessed about 25 yards out. David W made a good point about Clyde's pace, but Stenhousemuir badly lack any pace up front. It wasn't Scott Ferguson or David Weatherston that Brora were facing, it was Martin Grehan, who couldn't drop short much because Dickson wouldn't go beyond him, and Grehan didn't win much in the air against Grant Munro. Brora could play a high line and their central midfielders didn't let Hodge get on the ball at all, while Dickson spent too much time with his back to goal rather than side-on to try to make the most of any space behind the midfield. Brora were able to control the game for spells because Stenny just couldn't string more than a couple of passes together - the cycle of losing possession, facing the direct ball behind the full-backs and having the Brora midfield in their faces before losing the ball again perpetuated. Reid didn't do as much as I would've liked, given how promising he is, but he's a young winger and won't turn it on in every game. I was told to expect good things from Watt, but on the whole he wasn't very good. It was almost as if he was scared of getting the crunching challenge by Ross Tokely, who dominated him for most of the first 90 minutes before he was knackered. The big challenge that got a yellow came around the hour mark and Booth latterly went 4-1-3-2, moving Watt to the right and putting Dale Gillespie on the left. Probably the best bit of Stenhousemuir play came when Watt stayed on the right flank after a corner around the half hour mark, where Watt skipped past a tackle on right touchline at about the half-way line, carried the ball inwards about 20 yards and slipped a through pass for Grehan, who was about to pull the trigger when Tokely slid in from nowhere. Watt skinned Tokely a couple of times but that was in extra-time when the defender could barely get up after tackles anymore. The first goal was from a Sutherland inswinging corner, which either went directly in - as the tannoy suggested - or it took a glance off Grant Munro at the near post. In either event Munro's presence was enough to put the keeper and his marker off. With Brora going in ahead, I thought they were going to improve in the second half and close the game out. Booth had a different idea, as he clearly insisted on the short game from Hamilton and the back line at half-time. For the first couple of minutes Mackay and Sutherland really harried McMillan and Alan Lithgow. McMillan was slicing a lot of his passes and clearances on an arid, bouncing pitch and Hamilton often looked dodgy with some of his passes, so it was worth Brora continuing to press high. However, Hodge and especially Faulds began to play from the back as well. The plan was clearly to have Brora's midfielders push up so high to allow the band of '3' to have space behind Grehan. Booth was instructing Dickson to hold his runs until later to time the sucker punch better, but it never arrived. It was a slow build up and a chipped ball behind the defence that won a throw-in high up, which brought about an innocuous penalty where first Munro went to ground then his centre-back partner Scott Houston (I think) put in a clumsy challenge. The game was unsettled for a good 10 minutes after that, with Faulds sharp with his passing (much more so than Hodge) and the right-back Robbie Duncan coming on to a game, before Brora started getting on top again. Sutherland scored early in extra time due to "pussyfooting around the edge of the box," according to a loudmouth Stenhousemuir director. Hamilton put a flat kick out after yet another back pass and they were punished for it. I never saw Sutherland's third goal. I don't think Stenhousemuir made a clear cut chance after their goal, maybe a Lithgow header from a corner that he glanced away from the penalty area just before the end of extra-time. Ryan Miller looked to cut in on his right foot and had two absurdly wild sliced shots, one of which went out for a throw in. Watt looked reasonably dangerous on the right flank with more space as the game moved on, but his final ball was below standard. Brora were making the better chances and Mackay was close with some of the umpteen offside calls against him. Not once did Stenhousemuir try to turn the defenders and make them face their own goal, which was disappointing to see. Brora's front four are all small, nippy players and while their defenders are some of the best cloggers at clogging around, they're still cloggers. A team with pace will keep them too deep and won't be able to release the ball on the counter that the front four would thrive on. One of the few times they pressed Brora's defenders resulted in Tokely putting a square ball across the pitch that Stenny intercepted but the final ball was mistimed. Overall, there wasn't anywhere near as much about Stenhousemuir as I was hoping for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarraJag Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Fully expected Brora to win, could probably win League 2 if you gave them time to settle in, and do fairly well in league 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawfield Stallion Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Fully expected Brora to win, could probably win League 2 if you gave them time to settle in, and do fairly well in league 1 They were absolute horseshit when Clyde tore them apart in last season's Scottish Cup. Stenhousemuir are just garbage obviously, they're the exception rather than the rule Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarraJag Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 They were absolute horseshit when Clyde tore them apart in last season's Scottish Cup. Stenhousemuir are just garbage obviously, they're the exception rather than the rule Brora have got slightly stronger second half of last season and this season and are a better team than Clyde. Where did you play them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afca32 Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Zander's obviously still got it. He could definitely play at a much higher level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawfield Stallion Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Brora have got slightly stronger second half of last season and this season and are a better team than Clyde. Where did you play them? I know that all of the teams incestuously swap players up in that neck of the woods, but you don't have to blindly defend each other just because you're from the Highlands you know Brora might get away with it when they play against the caber tossers in their own league, but when they were pitted against a Clyde team who had a bit of pace about them they simply folded like a cheap tent - they were fortunate this time that Stenny started with that warthog Martin Grehan, who play to the strengths of the likes of Ross Tokely The players that ICT and Ross County sent out to pasture are all still there and one year older as well, so I'm not really sure that I buy the argument that they're any better this time around either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_bully_wee Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 Brora were poor when we played them last season. It was at Broadwood but they stayed in a hotel in Glasgow the night before the game ffs. Tokely and Munro were hopeless when the ball was on the deck and they failed to create much at all going forward. Indeed, their goal that day came from a hopeful 25 yard shot which swerved wickedly and our keeper should've done better with. I've no doubt we'd give them an utter dicking once our team gels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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