Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		37 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		122 apps	8 goals
Jevan Anderson		9 apps	-
Stuart Smith		164 apps	13 goals
Stuart Anderson		144 apps	28 goals
Graeme Rodger		103 apps	30 goals
Max Berton		42 apps	4 goals
Scott Ferries		42 apps	4 goals
Archie MacPhee		12 apps	14 goals
Scott Barbour		97 apps	43 goals
Liam Burnett		25 apps	2 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		49 apps	18 goals
Kieran Lawrence (sub)		13 apps	-

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This victory was every bit as comprehensive as the scoreline suggests albeit it fails to reflect the gritty persistence of a young Lossie side that kept in there pitching until the last minute of the game. The buzz around the ground prior to kick off was of the slightly premature revelation of the new management pairing of Paul Lawson and Russell Anderson following the departure from the club “by mutual consent” almost a month ago of Kris Hunter. Jerry O Driscoll continues in his acting role until Saturdays game against Keith and was in charge for this game. Paul Lawson has asked him to remain with the club in the long term.

The players certainly gave every indication of their willingness to play under the new management by starting the game at breakneck pace and putting together a scintillating display of free flowing attacking football that had Lossie tied in knots within minutes of the kick off. Up front MacPhee and Barbour gave the visiting defence a bit of a roasting with the latter in particular dragging Hamilton to places he had rather not visit and causing mayhem running at defenders with the ball at his feet. As early as the 6th minute he did just that mostly on the right before popping the ball over to meet the perfectly timed run of RODGER who crashed the ball home shoulder high past the keepers left hand and into the net.

The early pattern of the game was of Formartine pressure interspersed with occasional speedy rapier thrust breaks. Usually involving either or both Archibald and Farquhar. One such, in the 10th minute yielded a low driven cross right to left across the goalmouth that was very nearly met by the run of McLaren. United were however firmly in the driving seat and utterly dominated possession for long periods with sophisticated pass and move routines. Pressure mounted and in the 16th minute pressure in and around the Lossie box was coming from midfielders like Rodger, Burnett, Berton and Ferries who had set up a base about 25-30 yards out from the Lossie goal. With Barbour breaking into the box on the end of a ball threaded through from this base by Burnett to Barbour who was felled not far short of the penalty spot by a rearward tackle by Hamilton who was booked for his pains. MacPHEE slotted the penalty kick low to the left of keeper Farquhar in the 16th minute.

Five more minutes of Uniteds best stuff interspersed by one breakaway by Lossie that ended with a cross cum shot from thirty yards out on the right by McLaren that MacDonald pushed to safety via the crossbar, was all it took before United cashed in again in spectacular form. BURNETT, picking up the ball from his base in midfield burst forward through the inside right channel and twenty yards or thereby forward into the box with Wilson and Mainland either side of him. He had the pace and strength to hold them off before leathering a vicious drive across the line of the advancing keeper and into the far corner of the net, for what was, at least arguably, the pick of the seven goals of the evening.

The way Barbour was playing, it was as inevitable as the creation of little apples by the almighty that he would score at least once. This he did in the 37th minute with a trademark close range effort after wriggling past at least two defenders before slotting the ball home from about 8 yards out.

The game was well won by now - there was no realistic way back for Lossie even this early in the game. No-one had told United this and they continued their pace and pressure with just as much intensity as with which they had begun the match. If Burnetts goal was a candidate for goal of the game, so too was Bertons. From about twenty five yards out and short of the left hand corner of the box, he unleashed a vicious, outside of the right foot bender of a shot that left a rather shell-shocked keeper watching thunderstruck as the ball screeched past him on its way to the top right side of the net. This was in the 43rd minute.

The second half saw Lossie making significant efforts to steady the ship and limit the damage. They began with the substitution of Hamilton by the veteran Ross and set out their stall to get as many as eight behind the ball on a regular basis and limit the number of forays made up the park. In essence they elected to sit in deep and give priority to keeping the score down. By and large it worked and to be fair it did not really kill the game even if it put the hems on Uniteds goal fest. United sustained almost as much pressure as they had in the first half and hammered away at the Lossie rearguard (all 8 or 9 of them) but as far as damage limitation went, the visitors play did the job. It took United until the 63rd minute to take their tally to 6. After a particularly intense period of pressure over the preceding few minutes where they had forced three successive corners the ball was still in the danger zone. Barbour managed to work it in a few yards from near the left corner flag before flipping the ball over towards the back stick where Archie MacPHEE rose above the defenders to head the ball hard, down past the advancing keeper and into the net from close in.

The pitch which had sustained 24 hours of almost incessant rain, some of it torrential, was holding up very well but conditions were inevitably energy sapping and combined with the furious pace with which United had conducted play over the first hour or thereby, a drop in pace was inevitable. United still dominated but Lossie were beginning to make some forays into United territory. Following the interception of a tired looking, under-struck crossfield pass by Ferries, by DUNN in the 87th minute, the substitute forward had a relatively clear run into the box from where he delivered a well placed and measured shot from around 8 yards out beyond the reach of MacDonald.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

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