Published: Thursday, 27th November, 2008 3:55pm

Crossgates blow two-goal lead to lose at home to Thornton

by Simon Harris

Comments (0) | Print | Email

Mark Pagliarulo scores for Crossgates
Pic by: Dunfermline Press

CROSSGATES boss Bill Smillie admitted his players had a bit of 'soul-searching' to do after blowing a two-goal lead at home to Thornton on Saturday.

Mark Pagliarulo blasted Primrose into a 2-0 first-half lead and could have had a hat-trick but for a good save by the Thornton keeper just before half-time.

That proved to be the turning point as Hibs pulled one back seven minutes into the second half from the penalty spot and equalised 12 minutes later.

With the momentum now behind them, Thornton went on to grab the winner through new signing Adam Drummond.

'Myself and the coaching staff were bewildered by the end result on Saturday,' a baffled Primrose boss Smillie told Press Sport.

'We played really well for the first 45 minutes and could maybe have seen the game out.

'Even in the second half we didn"t play all that badly and our goalkeeper can"t understand what happened.

'He never had a shot to save in anger.

"They had a lot of possession but they were shooting from outside the area a lot of the time and he didn"t have anything to do except pick the ball out of the net three times.

'We"re just a bit dumbfounded.

'A win would have set us up nicely for the match at St Andrews this week.

"For 95 per cent of the game we did everything correctly but it"s unfortunate that we lost three goals from set pieces.

'You"re never going to win games if you lose goals to set pieces like that and we"ve a bit of soul-searching to do between now and Saturday.'

Smillie will have three players who were missing last week back available for the tough trip to St Andrews and with Crossgates sitting sixth, eight points behind leaders Rosyth with two games in hand, he admitted he was fairly satisfied with the way the season was progressing.

'It"s been a bit stop-start with the weather, we"ve probably been playing once every two weeks,' he explained.

'We have a couple of games to catch up on and if we can put them to bed we"ll be up where we want to be, which is with the chasing pack.

'We"ve been at the club a year and a half now and we"re starting to get a bit of a squad together.

'The backside fell out of the season last year because we lost a few players and didn"t have a big squad but we"ve now got a squad of 20-odd.'

League leaders Rosyth were reduced to nine men but still managed to claim a point at home to Bankfoot with a 1-1 draw.

Returning defender Jordan Laird had a second debut to forget, sent off 10 minutes after half-time for a second bookable offence and he was followed down the tunnel 15 minutes later by Ross Morrison, red-carded for retaliation.

Recs had been leading with a goal by Charlie Scarborough but were unable to hang on, despite the visitors also having a player sent off, and conceded an equaliser in the dying minutes.

Former St Johnstone and Hearts defender Jim Weir helped steady the Bankfoot defence and Rosyth co-boss Jock Lumsden said, 'It was a bit of a poor result for us.

"If we had won we would have been six points clear but we"re happy to still be unbeaten.'

Lumsden was more critical of Morrison"s dismissal, saying, 'Jordan we can accept because he was a bit rusty and it was the decision of Paul and I to play him from the start.

'Ross Morrison was retaliation and we didn"t need that. It was a poor sending off.'

Recs will look to return to winning ways on Saturday when they travel to play third-from-bottom Scone, who had a 1-0 win at Steelend Victoria on Saturday to leave the Vics without a league win so far this season.

In the Premier League, Oakley came from behind three times to earn a 3-3 draw at home to Fauldhouse thanks to goals from Greg Sinclair, Lee Celentano and Peter Fyfe.

Saturday"s fixtures: East Region Super League – Linlithgow Rose v Kelty Hearts. East Region Premier League – Oakley United v Kinnoull. East Region Central League – Scone Thistle v Rosyth Recreation, St Andrews United v Crossgates Primrose.