Inverkeithing deny 10 man Shippy.

Manager Dave Costello was disappointed to leave Dalgety Bay with only a draw when he said after the match “I thought we played well today, particularly when we went down to ten men and we certainly could have won this. We had chances when we were a man short and although Scott pulled off a great save at the death it would have been a travesty had we lost.” He went on to add “I was pleased with the performance of a lot of the players today, Rooney was excellent until he was unfortunately sent off, Benji put in a tireless shift and might have added to his goal, Scoots was dominant in the middle of the park and I was delighted with Stuart Walton’s display on debut. He just ran out of steam but he will get stronger as we go. Nobody let me down and all the subs that came on played their part.”

Lewis Ross, Shaun Keatings, Darrell Anthony, Ben Anthony and Sam Glancy all returned to the starting eleven following last week’s match and there was also a debut for new signing Walton. Josh Urquhart, Lee Henderson, Dan Thomson, Mark James, Luke Mahady and Sandy Strang were the players who dropped out. There were no fewer than three Strang’s on the team lines with two of Sandy’s brothers representing Inverkeithing.

The crowd at Dalgety Bay was boosted by a large contingent who made the short journey along the coast from Burntisland for this eagerly anticipated Fife derby. Unfortunately for the spectators there was very little in the way of goalmouth action in the first half until the hosts took the lead in controversial circumstances just before the interval. With the Shipyard in possession the referee halted play so that an Inverkeithing player could receive treatment to an injury. Astonishingly, he awarded an uncontested drop ball to Inverkeithing and with the Shippy players complaining about the decision they lost concentration. The goal arrived as the ball was played wide and when the cross came in Grieg Spence was on hand to nod the ball home.

Inverkeithing didn’t hold the advantage for long as two minutes into the second half the Shipyard were level. A long throw from Walton was headed on at the near post by Iain Millar and when the ball broke to Benji he rattled home the equaliser. Another decision that upset the visiting contingent led to the Shippy being reduced to ten men. It appeared that Millar had committed a foul on the Inverkeithing player, however, the referee said he was playing an advantage and penalised Craig Watt for his part in the incident. That being his second yellow he was subsequently sent off. Was it a case of mistaken identity? After a bit of a reshuffle in the Shipyard rear-guard they settled and had the better of the exchanges creating some chances with one in particular that Benji might have done better with. There was a moment of concern towards the end when a shot seemed to be heading in at the top corner but Scott Costello was equal to it and made a great save to avert the danger.

Next Saturday (26/03/2022) we welcome Dundonald Bluebell to Recreation Park for the final League Cup Section D match with the kick-off reverting back to the normal time of 2.30pm.

Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts: Mitchell; Brough; Patterson; Scullion; Hynd; Liddell; Murray; B. Strang; Kelly; Morris; Spence. Subs: Gibb; Annandale; Cowie; Simpson; Hall; Doss. E. Strang.

Burntisland Shipyard: S. Costello; L. Ross; J. Wilson (R. O’Donnell); S. Orrock; I. Millar; C. Watt; S. Keatings (J. Galloway); D. Anthony; B. Anthony; S. Walton (J. Urquhart); S. Glancy. Unused Subs: L. Mahady; S. Strang; R. Connor.

Referee: I. Snedden.