Ormiston prove to strong for Shippy.
The Shipyard lost out by the odd goal in seven as visitors Ormiston took all three points but once again the Shipyards inability to defend a lead cost them a victory. Despite being two up after twenty minutes the hosts let Ormiston score four unanswered goals and although the Shippy made it 3-4 late on, it was another case of what might have been.
The Shipyard got off to the prefect start by taking the lead with barely a minute on the clock. JP McPhail gathered the ball outside the box, engineered himself some space and drilled a low left foot shot in off the post. The visitors had more of the ball as the game progressed but Jordan Mushet in the Shipyard goal had little to deal with and it was the Shipyard who scored again when Kevin Masson fired home a free-kick from around 25yards in the 20th minute. Andy MacDonald was in position to head off the line as Ormiston sought a quick response while at the other end Masson drove forward but his shot lacked the power to trouble Ormiston keeper Ross Combe. The Shipyard lead was halved four minutes before half-time when Ormiston were awarded a penalty for handball against MacDonald. It looked more like the ball hit him rather the MacDonald playing the ball but the referee after a pause awarded the penalty. Craig Wojtowycz beat Mushet low to his left. Mushet then pulled off a decent save on the stroke of half-time to keep his side ahead at the break.
The Shipyard started the second half strongly and Brendan Napier saw his shot saved after being teed up by Masson. Masson was then unlucky in the 56th minute when his fierce strike was deflected onto the bar with the keeper beaten. Blair Smart was next to try his luck when he head flicked a lobbed ball into the six yard box from Dale Robertson over the bar with the keeper caught in no man’s land. The Shippy were made to pay for those misses when Ormiston equalised two minutes later. When the ball broke to George Cunningham outside the box he let fly and his accurate shot gave Mushet no chance. Cunningham then gave his team the lead when he netted from close range after Mushet failed to deal with an inswinging corner. The Shipyard defence did not learn their lesson as Ormiston scored an almost identical goal three minutes later. This time the ball sailed over the defence and Liam Skinner was on hand to nod the ball home. The Shipyard pulled a goal back with a couple of minutes left when Robertson got on the end of a flick on and beat Combe from six yards.
Manager Alex Lowe was disappointed with a number of things after the match when he said “This was the first game we have had since December 6th (If you exclude last week’s fiasco at Heriot Watt) when we played the same opponents, Ormiston, and once again we have lost by the odd goal. Ormiston are a big physical, intimidating side and we warned our players to attempt to stop the Ormiston players from getting crosses in to our box and not to defend too deep. We did this well in the first half and after scoring two good goals to go two nil up we were unlucky to give away a penalty just before half time partly due to not coming out quickly enough to attack the ball after clearing our lines. At half time we were 2-1 up and playing the better football. We started the 2nd half fairly well and both Kevin Masson and then Blair Smart were unlucky not to extend our lead before once again our inability to defend at a set piece cost us dearly by losing three goals from corners in a poor 15 minute spell”.
Alex was not overly impressed with the referee when he went on to add ”The game went a bit stale for the next 15 minutes apart from a few meaty tackles from the Ormiston players which were dealt with very leniently by the referee and then livened up a bit when Dale Robertson scored with around two minutes to go. We had a chance to level at four all but the referee called Ewan Henderson offside when it was clear to all in the ground he was onside”.
Alex said in his summing up of the match “this was a game we never should have lost and our inability to defend correctly at set pieces has cost us the game. All credit to Ormiston for playing to their strengths and beating us for the fourth time this season. I am certainly glad we do not have to play them again this season”.
Burntisland Shipyard: J. Mushet; C. Lowe; P. Bell (J. Bouhaddou); A. MacDonald; B. Smart; B. Napier (E. Anderson); D. Robertson; E. Henderson; S. Keatings (T. Arthur); K. Masson; JP. McPhail. Unused Sub: A. Clark.
Ormiston: R. Combe; J. Morgan; G. Gavin; R. Ferguson; Z. Szemis (R. Barker); D. Watson; G. Cunningham; L. Cockerell; C. Wojtowycz; L. Skinner (J. Edmond) K. Watson.
Referee: C. Wilson.