Airdrie News
Monday 14th March 2005

el Gringo 

We should have won, we outplayed them all over the park. Lost a soft early goal when McManus let their player skip past him with the ball, and he got it across for Duffy to tap it in. A nightmare start got even worse shortly after when McBreen caught McManus as they both chased a ball, and Alan was stretchered off with what looks like a very bad leg injury. Not sure if it's a break or whatever, but Roberts was warming up behind the goal where it happened, and he ran back round to tell Sandy something, and the reaction was not a happy one. McGowan came on in his place and put in a man of the match performance, winning absolutely everything that came his way. Things went from bad to worse on the half hour mark, when Doc limped off with no more defenders on the bench. Hardie moved to centre back and Dunn came on in midfield. While all this was going on, we were the better team, making some fairly good chances but maybe taking the wrong approach too often (high balls to Coyle and Gow when 6ft 7 Kevin James is in there? come on!), and we had an absolute stonewall penalty turned down when Gow skipped through the defense only to have his heels clipped as he went one on one with the keeper. We went in at half time having had most of the possession and played some great football, but nonetheless one goal and two centre halfs down. Second half was more of the same, and a Coyle knock on was handled by a defender for a clear penalty. Gow stayed cool and rifled home. With an hour on the clock, we took the lead when a wonderful crossfield pass picked out Coyle, who threaded through to McKeown who was bursting a gut to get forward. He sprung Falkirk's pathetic offside trap and lifted it over Fergie for a great second goal. After this we started defending too deep, and Falkirk were pumping everything forward. They scored after a bit of a stramash in the box, with James finally putting the ball in the net. McGeown could maybe have done better, but that might be a bit harsh considering he'd made some wonderful saves prior to that. It was just played out after that, Falkirk looked as if they were going to go for it but the wonderful McGowan and Wilson snuffed out anything they had, with Marv having Latapy in his back pocket all afternoon. All in all a great game that we should probably have won. One big gripe (ok two, there was the penalty we should have had in the first half) was Darryl Duffy. The boy's obviously talented, but he's a cheat. He was lucky to stay on the park after following through on McGeown, then he took two blatant dives in the box inside a minute. How we wasn't shown a second yellow I can't fathom. Never seen a more gutless ref.

Clan Chief

Hold on,hold on. We were very poor today and can count ourselves very lucky to be awarded a penalty. I cant think of too many chances on goal. Falkirk were a far superior side today but I will take the point gladly.

Rusty2 

Falkirk will be very pleased to have salvaged a point from this game because at one stage it looked as if they were going home with nothing. However in fairness they did come back into it towards the end & McGeown had some superb saves. So a draw was probably right.

All in all though a great performance by us after losing our two centre backs in the first half.

Significantly - compare what happened today with the result early in the season - we are now an established team in this league - the progress which has been made is exceptional

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Update by Chris Mac