Lowland League Cup: Spartans pay price for ‘not putting semi-final to bed’

In what turned out to be a proverbial game of two halves, the Ainslie Park men failed to convert a host of chances during the opening 45 minutes and were made to pay for their wastefulness in front of goal, falling to a 2-1 defeat.

A repeat of the 2016/17 final involving Spartans and BSC Glasgow, who beat Stirling University 4-1 in the other last-four tie, seemed on the cards after Adam Corbett struck to give the Capital club a half-time lead. However, the pendulum swung dramatically in Shire’s favour after the break and Spartans’ hopes of clinching late-season silverware now rest on their Football Nation Qualifying Cup Final against Camelon.

“I think we paid the price for not putting the game to bed in the first-half,” admitted boss Samuel. “We were in complete control for half an hour and created a lot of good opportunities. We should’ve been out of sight but credit to the Shire because they kept working hard.

“They came at us with an increased intensity in the second half and got a huge lift from the equaliser. From then on, they were the better side.

“It was obvious that we missed the experience of Mikey (Herd) and Aaron (Scott), who has been a revelation for us since joining over the new year.

“We’ll put this game behind us and start to look forward to facing Camelon next weekend. It would be a nice way to end the season if we could get our hands on some silverware.

“We are a club that is used to getting to the latter stages of these competitions and winning trophies, so it’s vitally important that we keep that trend going because we’re competing against clubs nowadays with far bigger budgets than we have.”

The home side enjoyed a bright start to the match and found themselves ahead inside the opening five minutes.

Stand-in captain Corbett rose highest among a cluster of bodies inside the six-yard box to head a corner past Jamie Barclay into the roof of the net.

Blair Atkinson should have doubled Spartans’ advantage shortly afterwards after finding himself one-on-one with Barclay, but the Shire goalkeeper was quick of his line to produce a fingertip save and keep the visitors in the contest.

The Falkirk-based team 
offered little in the way of an attacking threat during the first half, but Derek Ure’s side came flying out of the blocks at the start of the second period.

Blair Carswell was left to pick the ball out of his own net after 57 minutes when Spartans failed to clear a corner, which resulted in Liam Allison heading against the crossbar and team-mate Connor Greene reacting sharply to turn home the rebound.

By this stage, Shire were in the ascendency and the winning goal arrived with 20 minutes remaining when midfielder Steven Brisbane’s driven shot evaded the defence and flew into the net.

Shire boss Ure felt his players merited their place in this Sunday’s Final which takes place at East Peffermill, stating: “We were really poor in the first half and didn’t start the game well at all, which we can’t afford to do against BSC.

“I thought the boys were tremendous in the second half, though, and we really took the game to them. I can’t fault my players, they’ve a great group of boys and like the previous week have shown great character to come from behind.”

Spartans: Carswell, Brown, Cennerazzo, Tolmie, Corbett, Greenhill, Atkinson, McFarland (Reid), Maxwell, Dishington, Smith (Stevens). Unused: Peden , Wishart, Dawson

East Stirlingshire: Barclay, Greene, Allison, Grant, McKee, MacGregor (White), Rodgers, Gallagher (Smith), Brisbane, MacCafferty, McCaughie. Unused: Ure, Neave, McFadden, Murray

Referee: Stephen Brown