Two goals in the opening 28 minutes saw the Warriors run out 2-0 winners at Central Park to leave us three points adrift of the Warriors and Elgin City, who lost by a similar score at Albion Rovers who themselves are now four points clear of Cowden.
Manager Gary Bollan spoke to the Blue Brazil Online after the match.
“In the first half today we went out and there was no intensity, no desire and no hunger about it. First and foremost we asked the players to work hard and in my opinion in the first half we didn’t work hard enough all over the pitch, and even with the ball and without the ball we didn’t play well enough, that was the biggest problem in the first half.”
Gary continued, “I thought we were slightly better in the second half, we had too many players under performing and that is a massive problem. It is something that I have to look at with my coaches with a view to picking the team for next week. Today’s team virtually selected itself after the good performance against Edinburgh City, but there are question marks over the team for next week as today wasn’t good enough.”
He continued, “When you’ve got players with the ability of the players we’ve got we have to be miles better than that. We worked all week setting up our shape and whatever but when players cross the line I expect a lot of hard work and endeavour and we lacked that today. As a coaching staff we also have to look at ourselves as well to see what we can do better. We work tirelessly behind the scenes and this week it will be the same for next week’s Scottish Cup tie. I watched Civil Service Strollers myself last week against Gala and will be absolutely not underestimating them. Gary Jardine, I know very well from his time at Edinburgh City and his teams are always set up well and are difficult to beat. Next week won’t be any different and we will have to be at the top of our game to get a result in the Scottish Cup.”
“I thought Gavin Morrison did well when he came on in the second half and it’s a great boost to have him available again and he will be in our thoughts for next week. We have to work harder – There’s a phrase that I tell the players that Jim McLean used to use – ‘If you work hard first and foremost your performance takes care of itself’.”