Cumnock Juniors vs Dumbarton

[FifeSons]

Very jealous of those there tonight. I’m going to see two ‘big teams’ of English football tomorrow, and it just can’t compete with lower league Scottish football.

[FifeSons]

5 hours ago, Owsley said:

Steve Farrell reckons Cumnock v Auchinleck crowds are only beaten by the Old Firm games and Hibs v Hearts. In grounds that hold 3,000? 

Stevie Farrell has a track-record of talking absolute shite. His self-proclaimed greatest achievement is finishing ‘joint second’ in L2, in a season where he in fact finished 4th, just ahead of 5th and miles behind first.

Edited October 22, 2022 by FifeSons

[Ranaldo Bairn]

4 hours ago, FifeSons said:

We looked superb in the away kit. Might have to get that ordered now.

It was a tremendous looking outfit. 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

1 hour ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

It was a tremendous looking outfit. 

It's been introduced in our 150th year as our change strip as it was our original kit.  Interestingly, it seems that clubs back then often adopted the shirt colour of the national team which may explain why Dundee, Raith and yourselves wear navy blue, a colour which is fairly unique to Scottish football.

[squeezebox-son]

More about the match itself, I felt Cumnock were fair putting it about last night. Especially in the first half they looked like a bunch of hopeless hammer throwers. In the 2nd half the definitely came out and had a bit more of a go. But ultimately, they wouldn't have scored had Lynas not made a huge error. Yes, we looked uncomfortable at times but Long also didn't have any meaningful saves to make and I think it looked like we were a better team.

As I said last night, we have to improve but it was a step in the right direction and something we now need to build on to get back to where we need to be.

Edited October 22, 2022 by squeezebox-son

[Sweet Pete]

I watched the game late on iPlayer as I'd been busy. Perfect line up, though of course we had little room for change, but Wallace did well after coming on, his skill made us more effective in the attacking third. I thought we soaked up pressure well at times, happy to sit back and let cumnock wear themselves out without troubling us. Finlay Gray bursting to life late in the game is becoming his trademark and he played well otherwise also. Carswell dealt fairly well with the boy Jordan Moore, who came across as a p***k. We weren't hugely troubled and we're through, so an all round decent result. 

The cumnock scorer is a mate of mine. He almost never scores, usually doesn't start games and never plays wide left normally, he's a defensive mid. I thought he had the beating of Lynas at times last night, and Lynas' error lets him score, so bit of an off night for Aaron, but no harm done in the end.

[KirkieRR]

Good to hear Kirkie Rob Roy mentioned a few times on national telly, though no way are we WoSFL title contenders as they suggested.

[Sweet Pete]

5 minutes ago, KirkieRR said:

Good to hear Kirkie Rob Roy mentioned a few times on national telly, though no way are we WoSFL title contenders as they suggested.

Rob Roy was my granda's team. He was from Waterside. I was sad to see the ground turned into houses.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

3 hours ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

It's been introduced in our 150th year as our change strip as it was our original kit.  Interestingly, it seems that clubs back then often adopted the shirt colour of the national team which may explain why Dundee, Raith and yourselves wear navy blue, a colour which is fairly unique to Scottish football.

I think Partick Thistle played in a similar strip in their early days as did QP.

[Boghead ranter]

1 hour ago, KirkieRR said:

Good to hear Kirkie Rob Roy mentioned a few times on national telly, though no way are we WoSFL title contenders as they suggested.

There were loads of inaccuracies last night, as if the commentator had asked Packie Bonnar to do his pre-match research for him.

The worst for us being "Declan Byrne being used as a stand in striker", despite him being first choice more than any of our striking alternatives, and our top scorer.

[C'mon_the_Sons]

27 minutes ago, Boghead ranter said:

There were loads of inaccuracies last night, as if the commentator had asked Packie Bonnar to do his pre-match research for him.

The worst for us being "Declan Byrne being used as a stand in striker", despite him being first choice more than any of our striking alternatives, and our top scorer.

Sure they also referred to Gemmell as our ‘star striker’ or something similar at one point despite his use being as a late sub.

[KirkieRR]

They also seem to still think the WoSFL is 'the Juniors' though I suppose Cumnock keeping the name doesn't help.

[Boghead ranter]

22 minutes ago, C'mon_the_Sons said:

Sure they also referred to Gemmell as our ‘star striker’ or something similar at one point despite his use being as a late sub.

Aye, the implication he gave was that since Gemmell signed, Byrne and Wallace had struggled for game time.

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, KirkieRR said:

They also seem to still think the WoSFL is 'the Juniors' though I suppose Cumnock keeping the name doesn't help.

The WoS premier looks much the same as the old West superleague did so understandable enough if people still use that terminology.

[Sons FC]

I don't see many Sons games so I was delighted to see a full game on TV.

Overall, I thought it was a comfortable win in the end, in difficult conditions - although the Cumnock players seemed to slip more often on their own pitch than we did! They were very physical and heavy handed, with plenty of afters, a lean, a nudge, a push every time after we released the ball. 

They marked tightly and tried to hustle and harry us into mistakes but I thought we looked comosed for the most part.

It was not a game for the neutral though and if I didn't support Dumbarton I would have turned it over after about 15 mins.

I also thought we were rock solid in defence. Brett didn't really have a shot to save. Good positioning, good defending from us and poor touch and finishing from the Cumnock forwards limited them to, well, very little. Other than a 15 min spell at the start of the second half they didn't really threaten.

At the other end, how many chances do we need? McKee alone missed three very presentable chances and if we had gone in two or three in front I don't think anyone could have complained.

Definite penalty for me and well scored by Carswell.

They started the second half very strongly and were a bit fortunate to equalise. A horrendous touch from Lynas at the far post and it was too easy for the goal.

After that we closed them off and I don't think they had another chance, except for a late header.

Great goal from Buchanan to put us ahead again and an outstanding goal at the end from Finlay sealed the win.

I thought Gregor and Carsell were superb at the back. Buckie missed nothing all game and Carswell was clearly up against a stronger and faster opponent and I think he only led him past once. He stuck to it and more than once was hanging onto his shoulder, slowing him down and not letting him get past.

Orsi was outstanding on the wing, McKee was fantastic in the middle and Blair was stuffy when you need someone stuffy in the middle.

Byrne was pretty anonymous but Wallace was a big improvement and really should have scored.

How frustrating is McLean though? Does he ever pass the ball or does he always hold onto it until he loses it?

Also, we looked really good and slick with the ball at feet so why the High balls? Having said that we won a fair number of headers.

MoM for me was Buchanan. He was outstanding. Closely followed by McKee, Carswell and Orsi.

Although we have to be careful about a result against a team a few leagues below us, we easily avoided an embarrassing result.

Well done to the players, fans and management for a good result and I for one, enjoyed it. There was dig, fight and a good amount of skill from us.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Sons FC

[microdave]

'2000 fans so we're told' - have they borrowed the Seville calculator for that one? Just like the 15,000 they seem to think rock up for an Auchinleck derby. 

It ended up being a smidgen over half of that. The official attendance was 1003 which I think is pretty good. No idea why they have to exaggerate potential crowds.

[Jan Vojáček]

Had a wee watch back of the half-time and full-time analysis last night, and I think it was pretty much spot on. Over the course of the tie a 3-1 win was probably about the right outcome, and I was pretty pleased with how drama free we were. It's just a shame we weren't a wee bit more clinical in the first-half where we could've killed the game off.

Aside from the first 15/20 minutes of the second-half we largely controlled the play, dictated the tempo and didn't let it become much of a 'classic cup tie'. I was at Clydebank v Elgin last year and you could feel the momentum building from the terracing every time the Bankies put a nice wee bit of play together. On Friday night we didn't let Cumnock do that, especially in the first-half, and the atmosphere was a lot flatter than I was expecting. 

That was down to us and the way we stifled the play and didn't give them much to get excited about. It wasn't really end-to-end and Brett didn't have much to do.

In terms of performances, I thought Gregor Buchanan had a really solid game, Ross MacLean started to look more like himself (aside from when we insisted on booting head high diagonals to him) and Joe McKee was the best player on the park by a mile in the first-half. Although as the game became a bit of a scrap in the second he started to get overrun.

Two players really stood out for me though. And they are two guys I think everyone has criticised a fair bit; Kalvin Orsi and Ryan Wallace.

I was delighted for Kalvin when he got man of the match. He's a worker, he never gives anything less than 100 percent and - imo - he's been quietly quite effective this season. But on Friday he looked like a real threat all game, not just a workhorse winger. He created openings, got a few cracking balls into the box and Cumnock couldn't deal with his awkward, physical style. I hope he takes a lot of confidence from that, because I enjoyed watching him play.

Whilst Kalvin was raw physicality, Ryan Wallace came on and looked miles ahead of almost everyone else on the pitch in terms of his footballing brain. I was really sceptical when Byrne was hooked for him, but fair play. After a horrible game against Albion Rovers he looked a different player. He dropped into pockets of space, he dragged defenders about and he gave us a totally new dimension. His introduction swung the game back in our favour just as it looked like Cumnock might start to get on top.

It was interesting to see Finlay Gray pushed up closer to Wallace after his introduction, that's somewhere I'd like to see Fin playing more often. He makes some excellent surging runs into the box and has the legs and brain to thrive playing around Wallace imo. He's a bit wasted just as grafting centre-mid when he's such a threat going forward. 

Gray's goal was perfectly taken. Yes there were obviously tired legs in the Cumnock defence, but the burst of pace he showed over five yards or so to surge in on goal, round Barclay and roll into the net was terrific for that stage in the game.

Good luck to Cumnock for the rest of the season. I was expecting a bit of a hostile atmosphere, but it was actually very friendly. I think they'll be really disappointed they didn't put up more of a show though, especially in the first-half where they barely laid a glove on us - other than conceding a load of clumsy fouls. Jamie Wilson and Finlay Frye in midfield were largely good and big Jordan Moore up top has something about him. Although I wasn't sure if he was that good, or just one of these players who looks more dangerous than he actually is.

Banana skin avoided and hopefully a result and performance the players can take a bit of confidence from. With Glasgow Uni taking Albion Rovers to ET, Stirling Albion taken to penalties by Brechin and Bonnyrigg dumped out by Sauchie I don't think we should underestimate what a solid job the players did on Friday.