The Blue view

Peterhead keeper Graeme Smith was the only person from Peterhead Football Club to speak to the media after his side finished the match with only eight men.

The 31 year old whose has 235 senior appearances at eight Scottish clubs behind him chose his words carefully:-"It is great to make saves and help your team out but the game became a farce. It was shaping up to be a pretty good and even game. We always fancy ourselves to score. Even with 11 v 10 we were still getting to the edge of the box with a couple of chances.

"I don't think there should have been a red card in the game. The first one was a 50-50 ball, somebody is going to win it and somebody is not going to win it. The referee has just wasted the game. I need to chose my words carefully but that is exactly what happened."

Asked about his thoughts on the third red card, Graeme replied:-
"Our players said that there was a man on his foot and he just pushed off, chest high. That's the rules of the game, fair enough if you lift your hands. There was not much animosity in the game up until the red cards."

Dunfermline committed 10 fouls to Peterhead's nine but while the Pars had no bookings, Peterhead collected three red and three yellow. This was something that was not missed by the keeper:-

"Look at the card count today. Not every foul was a card. Football is going to the dogs if that is the way. If you are going to end up with eight v eight every week if you are going to be consistent with decisions like that.

"Dunfermline are a good team and after the break it was basically damage limitation for us. It almost turned into a training match with defence v attack. We only had me and seven other bodies. I can't remember being involved in such a strange game.

"You try to be as resilient as possible but with the best will in the world you can only defend for so long. We were never going to defend for 45 minutes. It was just a case of when Dunfermline were going to score."

Two of the red carded players, Steven Noble and Jordan Brown watched the second half from the stand

Match statistics revealed 32 shots at Smith's goal with half of them being on target. Dunfermline had 11 corners to Peterhead's three. The keeper continued:-

"It would have been very, very tough for us against Dunfermline with ten men but when you go to eight it was just a case of building a brick wall in front of the goal with bodies. They made the three extra men count and always had the spare man. We have to right it off and move on to next week."

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