After last weeks disappointing defeat at home to East Stirlingshire, Star has responded in the best possible manner with two emphatic victories which puts them in joint second place in the Lowland League. Tuesday nights 4-0 win over Vale of Leithen was stress free and this victory over Gretna could and should have been the same. In the end the points were secured in good style and it would have been a travesty had it ended any other way.
Manager Ritchie Maxwell went with the exact same line up as the Vale match and straight from the off they had the visitors pinned inside their own half. Dominating possession is all well and good and is even better when it is converted into goals and in the 7th minute they did just that. Dan Orsi collected a ball in centre midfield, turned and played a peach of a ball over the Gretna defence that was perfection for Russell Currie and the big striker does what he always seems to do, he collected the ball and drilled it into the bottom corner with his right foot giving keeper Matthew Connelly no chance. It was the perfect start for the home side and for the first half hour their passing and movement was excellent. The only downside was they failed to threaten Connelly in the Gretna goal but you always felt that would come if the domination continued. In the last ten minutes or so of the half Gretna slowly began to make an impression in the match and forced a number of corners that were dealt with comfortably by the home defence.
The half time whistle came with Star still leading thanks to Currie’s strike and they came out for the second period like a team on a mission. One of the outstanding features of the midweek win over Vale was the quality of deliveries from the wide areas, in particular those from Dean Brotherston. Three minutes after the re-start the full back put in another superb delivery which found the unmarked Scott Phillips 8 yards from goal, but the big defender went for placement rather than power and his glancing header went past the post. The high tempo was back though and in the 55th minute Star got the crucial second goal and what a superb team goal it was. Brotherston pinged a magnificent diagonal pass that few players at this level can do, straight to the feet of Lewis Sloan who took a great first touch before delivering the perfect cross into the centre to find Currie who like all good strikers was in the right place at the right time to score with a simple finish for a player of his ability.
At this stage it looked like a question of how many Star would score, as such was the solidity of the Star rearguard, keeper Darren Holt had not yet had a save to make. Just before the hour though the match took a strange turn when Gretna centre half Daniel Harvey went in with a challenge on Orsi that could only be described as shocking. It was a forceful, two footed assault that the whole stadium must have thought could only result in a straight red card. Orsi was a lucky man to avoid a very serious injury and he understandably reacted by pushing the defender who fell in a crumpled heap immediately on the Islecroft turf and remained there for a few minutes as things threatened to boil over. Once he bravely managed to drag himself to his feet Harvey was incredibly shown a yellow card, as was Orsi and one can only assume that the referee’s view of the incident must have been blocked.
The whole tone of the match changed after this. Before it has been a derby match played as you would expect with no quarter asked or given but after this incident there was a real edge to the match and not necessarily in a good way. In the 62nd minute Oris almost exacted revenge in the best possible way but his shot was well saved by the feet of Connelly and six minutes late Holt had his first save to make when substitute Paul Hale’s header from a free kick was straight at him. A touch of carelessness was now creeping into Star’s play and they visitors had a good chance in the 73rd minute when Dean Quinn found himself unmarked at the back post but his first time shot flew over. With five minutes left, what looked liked being a comfortable finish to the match most certainly wasn’t when the Raydale Park side scored. A rare error at the back allowed Aiden Duffy to run clear and the forward finished well firing high past the advancing Holt.
However instead of suffering a nervous last five minutes plus stoppage time, the home side went back on the front foot and within seconds a sweetly struck effort from Brotherston found the side netting. Minutes later captain Jack Dickinson’s header was saved on the line by Connelly and in the 89th minute the points were finally sealed. Again Sloan was the man with the assist as his low cross from the left was deflected away from goal but only to the feet of Brotherston, and his first time strike found the back of the with the aid of a deflection, though to be fair to Dean his effort was probably going to find the net anyway.
So another three points for Star and if anyone had said Star would be joint second after 12 games well, you know the rest. We now have a three week break from league duty in which we can reflect on a superb job done by the management, players and committee. Next up is a match against Whitletts Victoria in the SFA South region challenge cup and after that is the big one, the Scottish cup itself. We are overdue a good run in that particular competition but before we turn our attention to that match we have a tough tie at Islecroft. As they say, take one game at a time.
DALBEATTIE STAR 3 GRETNA FC 2008 1
Currie (7, 55) Duffy (85)
Brotherston (89) HT 1-0
DALBEATTIE STAR: Holt, Brotherston, Dunn, Todd, Dickinson, Phillips, Orsi (Gordon 81), Graham (Cowie 70), Currie, Sloan (Potts 90+1), Cairnie
Subs not used: Degnan, Emmerson, Muir, Smith
Yellow Cards: Brotherston, Orsi, Graham
GRETNA FC 2008: Connelly, C Duffy, Hendji (Jeffrey 73), Quinn (Smith 78), Harvey, Griffiths (Hale 65), Ivison, Cameron, A Duffy, Cooper, Sneddon
Subs not used: Liddell, Emerson, Kilbride
Yellow Cards: Cooper
Ref G Hanvidge