The Buffs stay top of the league after a Jack McMahon brace and a Nathan Lennox goal helped The Buffs get over the line after an unnecessarily difficult 90+ minutes, which saw Kevin Kelly’s side edge out Blantyre Vics 3-2. The Buffs will feel they should’ve had the game wrapped up much earlier on, but The Vics worked The Buffs right until the last minute and even missed a penalty, which would’ve seen them take the lead in the first half. The Buffs held a 2-goal lead twice in the match and will be disappointed they ended up being run so close but secured the 3 points, nonetheless.
The Buffs loaded the Vics’ box with crosses throughout the 90 and began doing so in the first minute when Mark Lamont won a free kick just inside the opposition half. Lamont proceeded to take the free kick and whipped the ball into the corridor of uncertainty, where Vics goalkeeper, Lukasz Osinski came out and collected the ball very well, wiping Jack Maccalman out in the process.
Next it was a cross in from the left by Bryan Boylan, which caused The Vics defence problems. The ball was deflected towards the back post, where it came so close to finding the toe of Jack McMahon, who looked set to tap the ball into the net but just couldn’t stretch enough to get any contact on the ball. The following corner from Mark Lamont fell to the feet of Lawerence Hendry at the back post. Larry was in lots of space and took a touch before hitting a half-volley, which was dragged just past the near post of Osinski’s goal.
Nearly all of the football was being played in The Vics half during the first 45 with the biggest chance of the game so far, coming around the 23rd minute when Jack Maccalman launched the ball in from a throw in on the left side, which made its way over to the back post where Lawerence Hendry was waiting. Hendry out-jumped his man well before shooting a header that looked destined to find the top right corner but was cleared off the line brilliantly by the head of centre-half Ciaran Walsh.
Soon after, Dylan Duncan got a bit of luck when driving from right to left as he bundled the ball through 2 defenders before finding himself in space on the left side of the box. Dylan then slid the ball out to the left for Boylan, who drove a low cross into the box, which the goalkeeper managed to get out and get a hand on the ball to stop it from finding McMahon, who had peeled off his defender round the back post. In hindsight, Dylan will probably feel he should have just gone alone, as he didn’t seem to realise how much time he really had on the left side of the box.
The Vics were really struggling to build their way up into The Buffs’ half and found themselves on the end of total domination from The Buffs as Kevin Kelly’s side continued to probe the box with constant crosses from the wide areas. Dylan Duncan was next to have a great chance when he and Sean Mcgreer combined with a one/two down the right wing, which allowed Sean to get to the byline and cross. It wasn’t a great cross and looked comfortable for Osinski to come out and gather, but Jack McMahon showed a great turn of pace to charge across and nick in front of the goalkeeper. Jack then turned at the near post and laid the ball off to Duncan, who had made a run inside the striker and received the ball in a great position just to the right of the penalty spot. Duncan decided to hit the ball first time with the inside of his left foot towards the near post, but the Blantyre number 1 got a strong hand to the ball to keep the score level.
With around 5 minutes left of the half, The Vics made their most dangerous venture into the Buffs half when a throw in from the left-hand side landed on the chest of Jake Ruxton, who was being marked tightly by Sean Mcgreer. Ruxton then took a tumble, which led to referee Ewan Dunn pointing to the spot despite there being no real claims from the away side. Captain, Mark Hansen stepped up to take the penalty but rifled the ball off the bar, squandering The Vics’ first chance of the game.
The last action of the half ended up being the most pivotal when Maccalman launched a long throw over the top of the opposition defence, down the right-hand side. Jack McMahon eventually managed to escape the grasp of defender, John Kelly, before finishing low under the goalkeeper to give The Buffs a 1-goal lead heading into the break.
The Buffs will feel they should’ve led by a larger margin heading into the interval after failing to really capitalise on their dominance and control of the game so far. Both sides were slow to start the second half, with The Buffs failing to really convert their possession into chances. It was a bit of luck that gave The Buffs their first chance of the second half when a Blair MacIntyre free kick was adjudged to have hit an arm amongst the Vics wall, which led to the referee giving the second penalty of the game. With usual penalty taker Mark Lamont off the park, it was Jack McMahon who stepped up to take the spot kick. The young forward showed great composure to just pass the ball into the bottom left corner to double his goal tally on the day.
The game became quite scrappy and very stretched during the following 10 minutes after the goal, which allowed the visitors to grab a goal back through substitute Harry Kent. The ball was crossed in low from the right-hand side into the path of Kent, which allowed the forward to strike the ball towards goal. His effort was blocked by Bowie, but the ball just fell straight back to the substitute, who made no mistake with his second shot as he fired under the legs of Dylan Brown who hadn’t really had a save to make until this point.
It didn’t take long for The Buffs to retake control of the game when Boylan made his way down the left-hand side and got to the byline. Bryan couldn’t get a great connection on the cross, and the ball just rolled towards the front post, which gave the Blantyre defence a chance to clear. Despite the cross looking fairly easy to deal with, the ball was only half cleared out of the Vics box, and the clearance only made it as far as Lennox, who found himself just inside the box. The midfielder hammered a first-time volley goalward, which Osinski got a hand to but couldn’t keep out.
At 3-1 The Buffs looked set for a comfortable end to the game, but it just wasn’t to be that way. Blantyre Vics played a direct ball down the left-hand side to Harry Kent, who took a touch before driving into the box towards Sean McGreer. McGreer’s body shape was all wrong, which allowed Kent to just take the ball past him before being taken down by a clumsy tackle from Sean. Mark Hansen steeped up to take his second penalty of the game, and this time made no mistake from the spot as he fired the ball past Dylan Brown to set up a nervy final 10 minutes for The Buffs.
Fortunately for Kevin Kelly’s side, despite a frantic end to the game where the Buffs seemed to just lose all control, there was no more late drama in store as The Vics just couldn’t muster up one final chance that could see them salvage an unlikely point from the game.
Kevin Kelly was complimentary of his side’s ability to earn 9 points from a difficult 7 days,
“I thought we looked a bit tired today, but fair play to the players, 3 games in a week in really demanding, not great conditions. The mentality of the players to keep churning out victory after victory was great to see, so all credit goes to them. I thought we probably should have had the game more out of sight, to be honest, I think their goalkeeper was man of the match, he makes 3 or 4 clear-cut saves from chances we should probably be putting away. Maybe we need to be a bit more cut-throat up front, but again, you don’t want to be too harsh because the players were excellent to get us 3 points after such a gruelling week.”
The manager also picked out a couple who he thought were pivotal to the result on the day,
“Once again, good to get Nathan Lennox more minutes, but I thought Blair MacIntyre was excellent with his energy and enthusiasm in the middle of the park along with his willingness to drive us forward, but also his leadership skills. We have to make a change early and bring Mark Lamont off, and we change it slightly, pushing Lennox into a higher area of the pitch, but Blair MacIntyre’s standards never dropped from the first whistle until the last, and the demands he put on his teammates to meet the standards were great. It’s great to have him back in the squad and playing to the standard he is. Obviously, we get more minutes in Fraser Malcolm, and it’s good to see Connor McLaughlin back on the pitch today as well. Overall, it’s been a really good week and I’m really happy with the players commitment and the standards that they are driving towards each other so we just hope that that can continue over the next 10 games”
