Time added takes its toll

Replay required after Andy Geggan had the misfortune to score for both teams on Saturday.

Geggs' 14th minute opener had set the Pars up for cup tie success and that looked assured when Gregor Buchanan increased the lead on 61 minutes but after Willie Gibson scored a bit of a freak goal with ten minutes of normal time remaining that heralded an all out attack on the Pars goal.

In the fifth minute of added time Gibson sent over a last chance corner from the left and in a crowded penalty box Geggan's attempts to clear went disastrously wrong and he scored the equaliser. Talking to the media after the game he admitted that his first goal was as much of a surprise:-

"I didn't even know that the first one was going to go in, the second one I was unlucky. I just couldn't get out of the road of it. It came off my head and went in. The boy jumped in front of me, he missed it and I was in the air and it just came off me. These things happen in football.

"The ref told me there were to be four minutes of added time to be played. When Shaun Byrne went down in a tackle there was one minute to play. Then we seemed to play another three minutes."

The stoppage for Byrne to recover also included a stoppage for referee Des Roache to send Pars gaffer to the stand for what Jim Jefferies was to claim was just an attempt to get instructions out to his own player. Time got added on presumably for that and another incident that followed where Buchanan was yellow carded. Losing a goal at the very end meant that the away dressing room felt like it had just experienced a defeat which was doubly disappointing for the Pars captain who just wanted to praise his team mates:-

"I thought the boys were magnificent in the way that they went about their jobs. We were absolutely brilliant, if we keep that going every week we will be alright. We got off to a good start with the goal, then we got another goal."

Andy scored a hat trick against Partick Thistle in the midweek Development League match and he felt that hitting the net in those games built confidence:-

"All the boys have been playing well in the Under 20s. He got a reaction off me, Moffat and Ross Forbes. We just need to step up the game and go about it every week. Hopefully the gaffer just puts the young boys in the Under 20s next time!"

He described his first goal:-

"I knew that the keeper was going to come but I thought his hands would have been higher than my head to be honest. Luckily I got the first goal.

"I don't know what happened with the first Stranraer goal, I think Ryan Scully just misjudged it but that's what happens in a cup game, anything can happen in the cup.

"The boys are all disappointed. We have the replay a week on Tuesday back at East End but if they apply themselves the way they did on Saturday we should be okay."