Clyde v St. Mirren

Recap

After the mauling at Inverness last week Clyde restored a degree of pride and can look upon this game as another two points dropped. They created more clear chances than St Mirren, but didn’t have the luck required to kill the game. Murray and Kernaghan returned to the side to bolster the defence and Keogh again took the role of centre forward.

Nobody quite knew how Clyde would respond after last week and straight away Quitongo turned Murray inside out to give himself a clear strike at goal. Fortunately he blazed the ball over the bar. Clyde were channelling everything down the right and it quickly led to a goal. Kernaghan’s first time pass following a corner led to Keogh neatly flicking the ball into the net. Soon after Keogh could have done better than head over the bar following another corner from the right. It was all Clyde at this stage as all the team’s troubles seemed to be forgotten. Hagen drove the ball just over the bar and Hinds was very unlucky when his shot came off the inside of the post and spun away to safety. Mitchell made inroads into the St Mirren defence only for his shot to be deflected narrowly wide. Then just as quickly as Clyde had been on top they went into their shell and began to back off and allow St Mirren a lot of time and possession. Fortunately St Mirren didn’t have much idea what to do and Halliwell was given little to do. Convery did have a solo break but his shot from a narrow angle was well saved by the Saints keeper. So as half time sounded Clyde were well worth their lead.

The second half started with Smith being replaced by Cranmer. Murray had accidentally clashed with Smith just before the break and he couldn’t continue. Saints had obviously been tongue-lashed in the dressing room at half time and they came out and pushed Clyde back straight away. Although they weren’t creating many clear chances it only seemed like a matter of time before they equalized. Clyde’s midfield simply couldn’t get the ball and hold on to it. A rare break saw Convery produce a neat lob from the edge of the box but the St Mirren keeper did very well to push it over the bar. Halliwell produced a great reflex save to deny Burns but the goal arrived in unclear circumstances. From a Saints corner the referee saw a holding/pushing offence and blew for a penalty. Even the Saints players looked a bit surprised at the decision. Gilles steered the kick into the corner beyond Halliwell. It looked likely that Saints would go on to win and it took a wonder save from Halliwell to keep Clyde in the match. Millen miscued a clearance and the ball was heading for the roof of the net before Halliwell managed to punch the ball to safety. Dunn and Kane replaced Convery and Hinds as Clyde tried to find a win. Clyde piled on some pressure in the last five minutes but to no avail and they had to settle for a point.

The first thirty minutes of this game gave Clyde fans some confidence and Clyde should have scored more than one goal. However the old midfield frailty appeared again and they simply disappeared for a large portion of the game. The defence looked better with Kernaghan having a solid game. Hinds luck in front of goal must change soon and hopefully it will begin up in Dingwall next week. Even at this stage of the season we must be looking for at least a point up there to stay in the pack.