Clydebank 1
Cumnock 2
League (WoSFL Premier)

Match Report

Football managers famously back their players to the hilt, even in the face of the most compelling evidence. So for Gordon Moffat to label his players first half performance against Cumnock as disgraceful and to go further by apologising to the supporters, just goes to show the strength of feeling he must have privately.

He was not wrong. The Bankies were abysmal as they lost by two goals to one against Cumnock in what must rank as the worst performance of the season. Moffat has to shoulder some of the blame by dropping Little and Low to the bench. With Darroch already missing through injury, there wasn’t a leader on the pitch and it showed.

Right from the start Cumnock had the Bankies under all sorts of pressure. We simply couldn’t get out of our own half in the opening stages, and when Frye struck the visitors into the lead after 12 minutes, it was richly deserved.

Just five minutes later, the calamity that was unfolding got even worse as the Bankies contrived to give away two penalties with barely a minute between them.

The first one was saved brilliantly saved by Donnelly, but the failure to clear the ball saw Eze – who looks way out of his depth – trip a Cumnock player just inside the box for a second spot kick. Wilson was man enough to take his second penalty of the night and made no mistake.

With the game looking beyond the Bankies even at this early stage, we finally saw some semblance of attacking play when a corner ricocheted towards the goal but was headed off the line by Willett.

Little and Low were brought on at half time for Slattery and Eze and Clydebank showed much more intent. However, you do need to take this in the context of the fact that Cumnock were two goals up and didn’t need to go racing forward at every opportunity.

For a good twenty minutes the Bankies had the upper hand, but didn’t create an awful lot of chances. Hodge was unlucky when he finished off a good passing move only for Barclay to dive to his left and make a great save.

Niven could have done better than volley a free kick wide, which he met at the back post, and just past the Hour Nicky Low sent Barclay scrambling across his line to save a 25 yard free kick. The rebound was unkind as it went straight to a Cumnock player with three Bankies in attendance.

The Bankies made further substitutions, but it seemed to unsettle the side, and Cumnock came back into the match, when Willett curled a free kick past the post.

Clydebank continued to look for a way back, and Higgins should have done better with a side footed effort from ten yards, after great interplay by Weir and Little. However, his shot was not hit wide enough and Barclay saved.

Nicky Low then hit a defender directly on the chest with a near post shot from a cleverly worked corner straight from the training ground.

The game should have been wrapped up with quarter of an hour to go when Cumnock were awarded a third penalty kick. Big Matt Niven got himself into a bit of a fankle, and a Cumnock forward nipped past him. As he raced in on goal he was brought down by Frazer Johnstone.

Once more Donnelly was the hero saving again, this time diving to his right.

With two minutes remaining, Clydebank claimed a consolation goal with the fourth penalty kick of the night. Willett took his eye off the ball as it bounced up in front of him and clearly struck him on the arm. Nicky Little netted his 8th penalty of the season to cut the deficit.

The ref added on eight minutes of injury time, and once again Matt Niven was thrown into attack, but there was never really any prospect of an equalising goal.

To be honest, this performance has been coming. We haven’t really played well as a team since we beat Arthurlie in January. We managed to stumble past opposition that we should have been more convincing against. We’ve had penalty kicks in four of the last five games as well that have really helped us out.

Also, what is it that makes opposition teams come to Holm Park and have us the back foot early on in games. This game was the seventh time we have conceded the opening goal at Holm Park. Last season it happened 12 times, and we only turned one of then into a victory. This season we have turned it around three times.

There must be a reason for this. We need to be bolder at home. Good teams take the game to the opposition at home. It is so vital to get the opening goal. Whether by accident or design do we need two sitting midfield players as appears to be the case with Low and Johnstone. One of them needs to get forward more.

On top of that, we now seem to have a striking problem with Ciaran Mulcahy out injured again. It appears that Moffat can’t choose between McKinlay, Higgins and Weir as none of them lead the line anywhere near as well as Mulcahy. Higgins has only scored in one game he has started and that was against Eglinton, whilst Weir hasn’t scored since that same game. McKinlay did score recently against Cumbernauld, but his last goal before that was, not surprisingly, in that game at Eglinton.

The statistics paint a picture, and we have a very difficult run in to boot. We have pretty much played all the bottom markers twice, so we are going to have to really up our game if we are to finish as high as last years fourth.

The Bankies travel to Cumbernauld to play Kirkintilloch Rob Roy on Saturday. The weather may put paid to it, and it might not be such a bad thing.

Match report written by Stuart McBay