BILLY STARK was happy before today's game even started when he got the news that the Firs Park pitch had passed a morning inspection. The boss was keen to try to get some points on the board and avoid a fixtures pile-up at the business end of the season. All this correspondent worried about was whether the boss would still be happy at the end of the 90 minutes. Gulliver has seen us come a cropper far too often against the Shire to approach any game at Firs Park with confidence. Take the three clashes so far this season. We thumped the Firs Park outfit in a Challenge Cup tie, scoring five without reply. We then lost to them in the league, before they repeated the medicine on the day the red mist descended at Hampden and we lost three players - three goals - and three points. To say we owed Shire for that one would be something of an understatement. Could we start to wipe the slate clean today? If we were to win, we would have to do so without Richard Sinclair who tweaked a hamstring against East Fife. Alan Trouten and Steve Reilly were also missing. Those casualties apart, the boss had a full deck to choose from, and plenty decisions to make. Would last week's goal hero Frankie Carroll get the chance to start? Would Paul Cairney or Tony Quinn get the nod in the middle of the park? Would Mark Cairns return in goal? In the end, Billy made just a couple of changes, with Cairney back in for Quinn and Agostini in for Sinclair. Any time we do well against Shire, we start well. Today we came out the traipse like scalded greyhounds. We were keen, determined, and willing to put bodies in where it can hurt. Sadly, we were lacking a bit of finesse when it mattered, so the early stages saw both keepers having an easy time of it. The pressure was, however, mounting on the home defence and it paid off with 12 minutes on the clock. Weatherston got the ball and did what he does best. He ran, and ran, and ran. He then cut inside the last defender and rolled the ball into the net. Believe it or not, it was his first goal of 2007, and it came in Shire's first home game of the year. Queen's then went for the kill, and Robert Dunn had the chance to get his first goal. With 24 minutes on the clock, Kettlewell set up Dunn whose first swipe went nowhere. The ball rebounded kindly for him, he settled, and still failed to put it away. It was all going our way and the home side had precious few chances. Still we couldn't get the vital second score. But just when we thought it might be one of those days we finally took another chance. And it was all down to the remarkable energy of pocket dynamo Cairney and the other Mr perpetual motion Kettlewell. Firstly Cairney refused to give up a lost cause and won a shy. Then he ran into space for Paton to give him the ball. A wee shimmy along the byline, a cut back - and Kettlewell ran onto the ball to finish in fine style. That should have seen us in easy street with less than 10 minutes to the interval, and it could have been more. And the pattern continued after the break. Only four minutes had been played when the first of a number of incredible goalmouth scrambles saw Ronald, Ferry and Paton all have chances blocked. That was the cue for a mad 10 minutes when Queen's could have scored four times and Shire twice.. Ronald started it all by knocking a Paton free kick inches wide. Then it was Ferry who was denied twice by great saves from keeper Nugent. Queen's being Queen's, we then gave Shire a couple of good chances, but neither Stewart nor Dymock was able to punish us. Just on the hour we produced a sweet move which ended with Kettlewell feeding in Weatherston. His shot was rocket-propelled, but somehow Nugent flew across goal to tip it round for a corner. The last of the really ludicrous scrambles came with just over 20 to go. Canning, Dunn, Ferry and Cairney all had shots charged down, and it looked as if more than one of them was denied by a defender's arm. No goals, no penalty, and it remained at two. Billy rang the changes in the dying minutes, replacing Dunn, Cairney and Ronald to give Quinn, Carroll and Bowers a wee run. We couldn't find another goal, despite Frankie going close a couple of times. Crawford had to look lively right at the death to deny McKenzie, but in truth, Queen's were good value for their two-goal victory. A vital three points, a decent performance for the most part, but we'll need to step it up several gears if we want to down Dumbarton next week. Still, that seems like a good note to end on and head for the Social Club bar to toast the Bard ... in mineral water of course. Aye, that will be right. See you next week.
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