Burntisland Shipyard 2 Bathgate Thistle 2.
An injury time goal from Bathgate’s Gordon Harris denied the Shipyard a notable scalp in this pre-season friendly at Recreation Park. With time about up Harris received the ball at the edge of the box and found the corner of the net with his well placed shot and levelled the match at 2-2. Craig Lowe returned to the squad as he replaced the injured Daniel Watt in the only change from Saturday as Myles continued to give all his players’ vital game time.
The Shipyard took the lead in the 6th minute when Shaun Keatings latched onto a loose ball and his precise effort beat the Bathgate keeper from around 15 yards. Dale Robertson doubled the home teams lead in the 27th minute when he drove into the area, held off a couple of challenges and beat the keeper with the aid of a slight deflection. Bathgate reduced the arrears just after the hour mark when David Murphy nodded home a cross from the left from around eight yards. Both team created chances throughout the match but it looked like the Shipyard would hold on for the win until Harris’ late equaliser.
Obviously pleased about the evening’s proceedings manager Myles Allan said “I am delighted with the performance tonight. As much as I’ve said that results aren’t important in pre-season, I know that the guys were disappointed to lose the late equaliser. However, I can’t fault anyone for their effort and work-rate and I thought we showed some quality too, against a very good side. Given that the average age of the back four for the last half hour was 18, I thought that they were fantastic and the more experienced guys were excellent earlier in the game also”.
Myles expressed a note of caution when he went on to add “We’ll need to consistently reach the same level as we showed in this match to have a successful season. But there should be no reason for not working as hard as they did tonight”.
Burntisland Shipyard: J. Mushet; P. Bell (T. Arthur); E. Anderson; B. Smart (B. Rogerson); A. MacDonald ( C. McManus) C. Samson (K. Masson); S. Keatings; C. Lowe; E. Henderson (K. Buckley); D. Robertson (J. Crombie); JP. McPhail.