Sunday 13th September 2009
Queen's Park 15s travelled to Perth to face St Johnstone in their second game of the season. Queens Parks coaches and players anticipated that this would be a tough fixture as St Johnstone are technically a very good side.
It took 10mins for the game to settle as both team struggled to maintain any periods of possession. Queen's were however the likelier team to open the scoring as they began to threaten the St Johnstone goal on more than one occasion.
Queens Park opened the scoring with Connor McGuiness converting a penalty with a well placed strike. This gave the 15s further confidence to push on. Lawrence Shankland from his central midfield role supported the frontline and struck a well hit shoot that that went passed a diving St Johnstone goalkeeper.
Queen's looked to continue their good play in the second period. St Johnstone however had other plans as they worked hard in pressing the ball and making Queen's lose the fluency in their passing that was evident in the first period.
Frustration was creeping into Queens's play and they gave away a “silly” free kick on the edge of their penalty box. Their free kick was not defended well due to lack of concentration and communication as the St Johnstone player ran across the front of our goal to tap in to earn St Johnstone a goal.
Queens Park did have an opportunity to go further ahead as Raymond Lynch showed good strength and courage to nick the ball by their keeper. A penalty kick awarded. Raymond dusted himself and then preceded to skarve the ball as it slowly trickled by the left hand post.
The third period started off brightly as the coaches emphasised the necessity to get back to playing our style of football. To their credit the 15s play was good on the eye and were duly awarded for their good play with clinical finishing from Craig Johnstone and Raymond Lynch.
Craig Johnstone not only was deadly in front of goal but his unselfish play earned praise as set up his team mates with good opportunities to score.
Queen's coaches commented 'For a period of the game we were put under pressure and to our credit we overcame it by playing our game of fast flowing football and excellent finishing. Our back four deserve credit today for a disciplined and solid performance, especially Craig Marshall and Brian Coyle…..well done'.
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