| East Stirlingshire |
| Queen's Park |
| 2 |
| 1 |
| (Stewart, Canning og) |
| (Ronald) |
| In falling to defeat at Firs Park, Queen's not only lost face and real ground in the Third Division, but gave a performance that was almost a mirror image of the Aberdeen game. East Stirling have improved markedly, even since Queens thumped them 5-0 in the Challenge Cup this season, but a Queen's team at their peak would have had no problems here. Those we had yesterday were largely of our own, and the referee's, making. Steven Canning unaccountably headed into his own net to give Shire the win, only eight minutes after a flukey Paul Ronald goal had seemed to give Queen's the impetus to go on and win. Shire's first goal had come via a deflected, dubiously-awarded free-kick, and the referee showed appalling judgment in failing to award a penalty at 1-0 when a defender played goalkeeper to bat Weatherston's shot away. The referee was of junior quality, but for much of the game so were the two teams. For Queen's, there are too many players not contributing, the likes of Ferry and Canning doing nothing like as well as Weatherston and Ronald. While, admittedly, Weatherston was less effective yesterday, partly because of the narrow pitch, Ronald fought for everything, charging down the right in the first half and winning the aerial balls when switched to the middle for the second. He got little support from Dunn, who was lethargic and lasted barely an hour, while Kettlewell and Quinn dug in but showed little that was creative. Poorest of all was Alan Trouten, who did nothing when he came on other than lunge in to the tackle foolishly. Trouten is in real danger of draining his potential away through petulance- playing like a hormonal 13 year-old is one of the reasons he isn't starting these games in the first place. So who was? Well the line-up was the same as for the East Fife, but the system had been altered to a more conventional 4-4-2, with Paul Ronald on the right of midfield. This worked well, with Ronald more energetic than any 35 year-old should be, and in the 5th minute he moved down the wing before sending over a high cross that Quinn bulleted just over the bar. Queen's were taking far too long to settle, and Shire looked tougher, less naive, than they have in years. We were finding it hard to string moves together, and had to rely on a set-piece for our next good attempt at goal. Steven Canning blasted a free-kick from 22 yards, and Tiropoulos had to react sharply to push it clear. Six minutes later, a Dunn cross was met by Ronald, who headed wide of the upright while under pressure. Shire hadn't looked at all dangerous at the other end, yet were to take the lead in the 33rd minute with a highly-disputed goal. Why referee Charleston awarded the home side a free-kick on the edge of the area was unclear, and Stewart took advantage of his generosity to strike the ball off the wall and past the stranded Cairns. The wall should have stood up better, but Queen's had clearly been hard done by. This was worrying, as Queen's had struggled badly to break an ultra-defensive Shire down on their last league visit. A quick goal back would have restored some belief, but the goalkeeper was able to parry Weatherston's 39th minute shot, and no-one was around to pick up on the rebound. Weatherston had earned the chance by successfully forcing a defender into losing possession- typical of his tenacity. Mark Ferry had driven a rising shot in between the goal and Weatherston's chance, and Mick Dunlop came very near to equalising at the end of the half, sending a header wide when he flew in to meet a corner at the back post. The performance hadn't been good enough, and at the very least we needed to sustain some attacks during the second period- we didn't do that at all in the first half. Queen's did show more purpose after the break, and Billy Stark's decision to swap Weatherston and Ronald back to their usual positions started to pay dividends. Ronald led the line very well in the second half, and within 2 minutes he'd set up Ferry, who found his path blocked. Then Kettlewell had a go from 40 yards with a looping volley that panicked Tiropoulos for a second before dipping over. A good move in the 53rd minute let Ferry have another shot, which was held easily, before Dunn picked up on the midfielder's pass and lashed a shot in which bobbled up awkwardly in front of the keeper, who tipped it away. At last, we were beginning to get in sight of goal. From the corner, Ronald slid in at the back but volleyed high. A Weatherston burst caused danger four minutes on, but Learmonth recovered to slide in well, and from the corner Ronald posed little threat with a game attempt at an overhead kick. The suspicion was that Shire would break if we kept hitting them, and when Weatherston's drive after good movement was palmed away by a defender, we seemed to have broken through. However, the referee ignored the appeals, and his assistants chose to stand around like zombies. An outrageous decision, and no matter how sluggishly Queen's had played, I'm prepared to say that we'd have won had the penalty been awarded and scored. Instead we still had everything to do. Robert Dunn, pointing to his right calf, was unable to last beyond the 62nd minute, and Alan Trouten had to be thrown on for him. Shortly after, the Shire substitute Tweedie found himself alone in the box following a cross, but took too long to bring the ball under control and so allowed Quinn to hook the ball away from him with a fine recovery challenge. That was a rare example of Shire getting forward. Queen's had controlled the half, and finally equalised after 68 minutes. Not that there was much more than luck involved, as Ronald received Weatherston's infield pass from the left to shoot weakly at goal. Somehow though, the ball slithered from the keeper's grasp and into the corner of the net. This should have spurred Queen's on, but disaster struck in another rare Shire break 8 minutes later. A forward was given far too long to find room himself on the edge of the area; no-one wanted to tackle, and the ball was shipped to the left-hand side, crossed back in, and with Cairns coming out for some reason, Canning needlessly headed the ball into an unguarded net with no-one near him. Shire had been given the game, through no effort of their own, and quite frankly that's the only way this game could have been lost by Queen's. East Stirlingshire: Robert Tiropoulos, Gary Wild (Steven Blair 46), Steven Learmonth, Carl Thywissen, Steve Oates, Joe Boyle, Alan Ward (Paul Tweedie 62), Paul Stewart, Derek Ure (Scott Livingstone 77), Steven Dymock, Stephen Adam. Substitutes not used: Mark Molloy, Anton Nugent. Booked: Wild. Goals: Stewart 33, Canning 76 og. Queen's Park: Mark Cairns, Paul Paton, Mick Dunlop, Steven Reilly, Paul Ronald, Steven Canning, Stuart Kettlewell, Tony Quinn (Richard Bowers 86), Robert Dunn (Alan Trouten 63), David Weatherston, Mark Ferry. Substitutes not used: Damiano Agostini, Shaun Molloy, David Crawford. Booked: Quinn, Reilly, Trouten. Goal: Ronald 68. Referee: Craig Charleston. Attendance: 354. |