Livingston 0 Queen’s Park B 3
A brace by Liam McLeish and a late goal by Josh Hinds secured a victory for the young Spiders against Livingston, yesterday afternoon in the SPFL Reserve Cup, at the Home of the Set Fare Arena.
Head coach Sean Crighton made four changes from the last game in SPFL action with Jack Wills in goal, Zach Mauchin at the centre of the defence and Liam McLeish and Reece Evans in attack.
Bright sunshine greeted the players onto the pitch, with a very experienced Livingston side, which included David Carson, Reece McAlear and Lewis Smith in their midfield, dominating play in the opening 15 minutes.
Jack Wills was called into action a number of times with Livingston’s Sam Cuthbert going close in the 19th minute.
The young Spiders weathered the early pressure from Livi and in the 30th minute began to make in-roads into the Livingston half.
Reece Evans, down the left side, and Lennon Connolly, on the right, were getting to the bye-line and delivering crosses into the box. Queen’s forced a couple of corners in succession, but didn’t really threaten Pitaluga, in goal for the West Lothian side.
Jack Wills, in the 36th minute, pulled off a fine save diving low to his right to push a shot from Livi’s Culbert away from goal.
Half-time: Livingston 0 Queen’s Park 0
Queen’s certainly started the second period pushing much higher up the park with Timam Scott and Magnus Mackenzie combining well to get past the Livi back line on more than one occasion.
Livingston still looked dangerous on the break with Jack Wills called into action a couple of times to block shots.
The deadlock was broken in the 61st minute when Timan Scott was pulled down inside the box. Penalty to Queen’s and a red card for Livi’s Ewan Ross was referee Duncan William’s decision. LIAM MCLEISH stepped up and drilled the ball low to the keeper’s right to open the scoring.
With Livingston reduced to 10 men Queen’s now took control of the game and pushed forward for another goal.
That second goal came in the 78th minute when LIAM MCLEISH sprinted past a defender onto a through ball to knock the ball off the far post into the net.
Four minutes later it was 3-0 to the young Spiders when Pitaluga parried a Lucas McCormick shot from 14 yards out only to see JOSH HINDS smash the rebound into the next from just inside the six-yard box.
Full-time: Livingston 0 Queen’s Park 3
Today’s result puts the Spiders top of Group 3, with maximum points, with the final group game, the decider as to who wins the section, against Hibernian, to be played on Tuesday 17th December
Comments by head coach Sean Crighton: “It was a game of two halves. I though we sat back far too much in the first half instead of doing what we usually do – going and pressing teams. Having said that we defended well to keep a clean sheet in that first period.
“At the interval we emphasised how we wanted to play and we saw an immediate reaction. Timam did well to get the penalty which Liam slotted home. This was a result of good pressing, one thing which was missing in the first half.
“Liam took both his goals well and I thought Lucas made an impact when he came on.
“It was a good experience for the boys to play against a number of first team opposition players. However, in the first half I thought we sat off them too much, much better in the second half.”
Livingston: Marcelo Pitaluga, Aidan Martin, Samson Lawal, Euan Ross, Codi Stark, Sam Culbert, David Carson, Reece McAlear, Andrew Winter, Lewis Smith, Ricky Korboa.
Subs: Evan Myles, Jay Donnelly, Finlay Wright, Dylan Mauchin, Daniel Dobbie, Tommy North, Andrew Shinnie.
Queen’s Park: Jack Wills, Ross McLean (Liam McVey), Magnus Mackenzie, Zach Mauchin, Jay McGarva, Michael Collie, Timam Scott (Lucas McCormick), Lennon Connolly (Jamie Bradley), Liam McLeish, Reece Evans (Aidan McGinlay), Josh Hinds.
Subs: Zach Balfour, Max Fiddes, Josiah Sowa.
Queen's Goals - Behind the Goal with GoPro
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