Stuart's thoughts on hard fought draw on the road

With only 12 players available to us yesterday due to injuries and a couple of suspensions, we knew it was going to be a tough day for us but we’re absolutely gutted for the lads that they didn’t manage to hold out for the three points. Even with the limited squad, four of whom would ideally have been rested due to niggling injuries, we still felt the lads would be good enough to go there and win the game.

In the early stages, Stirling Uni certainly took the game to us and it took us a bit of time to get to grips with their formation and rotations in the middle of the park. So going in at the break at 0-0 I felt we had maybe pushed our luck a little and it wasn’t for Jordan (Moffat) in goal we could easily have been at least a goal down.

Again at the start of the second half, Stirling started on the front foot without necessarily causing us any real trouble but it was still a bit against the run of play when we took the lead within five minutes of the restart through Robbie (Renwick). However, with the amount of work the lads had put into the game, it was no more than they deserved.

Within minutes though, Jordan, who was exceptional all afternoon, kept us ahead after what looked like a harsh penalty decision but he picked the right was and got down early to block the effort. It was just one of these days that it seemed nothing would get past him.

It was pretty much backs to wall from there on in with the exception of a ten minute spell when we might actually have doubled our lead but to concede a deflected effort in the third minute of injury time was absolutely devastating for the lads.

In the changing room it felt like a defeat with the players deflated and out on their feet but they can definitely be proud of their performance as to a man they were exceptional.

It’s a free week for us next weekend so we will use this period to let some of the lads recover from injuries and niggles before we go again at home to West Calder United in two weeks’ time. Going into that with these last three games unbeaten should give us confidence to kick on.