Match Report - Sauchie Juniors
SAUCHIE 0-0 st andrews united
Match Report
St Andrews United travelled to Sauchie on a cold and windy day with Greg Shields taking charge of the squad for the first time in the East of Scotland League. The teams were locked together on ten points heading into the fixture and Shields made two changes to his starting eleven from the previous week’s win at Oakley with Lewis Payne and Lewis Craik replacing Owen Andrew and Dan Hall. Indeed, Craik fashioned the first shot of the game with a 20-yarder that just missed the target before Logan Halliday did very well to tip a dipping effort from Finn Malcolm over his crossbar a few moments later. Payne then went close to getting on the end of a superb cross from Mikey Ness in the 33rd minute but both sets of players struggled to cope with the swirling wind throughout an evenly contested first half. Both teams enjoyed spells of possession without creating too many chances of note yet the second period proved to be slightly more entertaining.
The second half began with Ross Kavanagh’s snapshot narrowly passing Halliday’s far post then John Tod saw a half-chance come to nothing since the tall defender couldn’t get his shot away. Sauchie subsequently gave Halliday a further scare in the 57th minute when Josh Gemmell flashed an effort inches wide of his far post then Shields rang the changes with Andy Johnston and Ross Cunningham replacing Sawers and Payne respectively. Those changes worked straight away as Sean Robertson was forced to save a Cunningham header from an Alex McCreadie cross and the home goalkeeper also did well to hold a shot from Craik in the 75th minute. McCreadie was replaced by Luke Mahady shortly afterwards and the latter promptly found himself in a scoring position, only to delay shooting, and the opportunity was gone.
Mahady also sent a good cross in the direction of Freddie Rowe but Robertson produced the best save of the game from the tall midfielder’s shot. The final chance of the encounter went to Sauchie’s Malcolm yet he lashed the ball over the bar as the contest ended 0-0. Saints thus recorded a first clean sheet at Beechwood Park in eight attempts, stretching back to 1994, and Shields could be pretty pleased with his first outing as manager in the Premier Division. Indeed, the St Andrews United players looked very-well organised and hard to break down as well as causing the hosts some problems in attack.
Result
0-0 
- Saturday 07-12-24
- Location: Beechwood Park, Sauchie
- Competition: East of Scotland Premier Division
