Gret£a 0 Queens 3 |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Mar 06 2007 at 1:57 AM |
What a day, what a result and isnt revenge sweet. After 3 heavy defeats to our border rivals so far this season we were determined to get something from the final league encounter between the teams for this season. Gretna have went through a mini slump in both results and form over the last few weeks while Queens have gone from strength to strength. The new signings in January have made a big difference and with Stephen Dobbie banging in the goals for fun things are now looking much better.
Queens started brightly and Gretna seemed surprisingly nervy and were?lacking any flow in their play. The opening 20 mins saw the visitors doing all the pressing and young Jamie MacDonald in the Queens goals had very little to do on a bright ,warm springlike afternoon on the solway coast. The travelling Queens fans who were stuck in the narrow tin shed that runs the length of Raydale park and the other hundred or so who had seats in the stand behind the goal were all in fine voice. The side was the same as that which took the field against Hibs in the Scottish cup last weekend with the exeption of Stevie Murray taking over from Willie Gibson who has now moved onto Kilmarnock.
As half time neared the only surprise was that Queens had not scored but after 38 mins all that changed. Gretna on a rare foray into the Queens box saw a cross blocked by John O'Neill and the ball clearly struck the midfielders hand. It was not deliberate and to the relief of all of us behind the goal play was waved on. Jamie MacDonald booted the ball up the park where it found Stephen Dobbie. The striker ran at the Gretna defence and it looked like he might square the ball to O'Connor but he beat his marker and shot low past Alan Main. The celebrations started in the crowd and the roof nearly came off the covered shed along the pitchside.
The second half started with Queens still pushing forward and it was the gretna defence that was kept under pressure. Laughlin and Thomson had everything under control at the other end when Gretna did occasionally venture forward.
The only real scare for Queens was when a ball came back towards Jamie MacDonald in the Queens goal and he went to trap it with his foot but the ball went underneath and just wide of the post to the relief of all the Queens players and fans. We did not have too long to wait for the killer second goal. Alan Main in the Gretna goal had been having trouble with his kicking all day and after 69 mins a clearance went right to the feet of Sean O'Connor who then knocked it into the path of Stephen Dobbie who strode forward and rounded the keeper and put the ball into the net to make it 2-0. All the people who had backed Queens at odds of around 6 or 7/1 were now looking forward to collecting their cash. Brilliant stuff.
Then with just a couple of minutes to go former Gretna star Stevie Tosh was tripped at the edge of the box and Eric Patons free kick with a little help from a deflection beat Alan Main at the near post to put the icing on the cake by taking the score to 3-0.
This had been a brilliant all round performance from the lads. I was impressed with both J.T and J.L at the back and in midfield Adams and Scally were again magnificent. Up front Dobbie is on fire at present and he has now notched 10 goals in 9 games for us. Long may it continue.
Gretna: Main, Barr, Skelton (Grainger 80), Nicholls, Canning, Innes, Paarpalu (McGuffie 80), Jenkins, McMenamin, Grady (Berkeley 59), Graham. Subs Not Used: O'Neil, Fleming.
Booked: Nicholls, Barr, Jenkins.
Queen of the South: MacDonald, Paton, McQuilken, Lauchlan, Scally, Jim Thomson, Adams, Dobbie (Weir 86), O'Connor (Barrowman 77), O'Neill, Murray (Tosh 66). Subs Not Used: Corr, Henderson.
Booked: Jim Thomson, Murray. Goals: Dobbie 38, 68, Paton 88.
Att: 2,049
Ref: D McDonald
Musky.
