Heading towards Stirling, the sky is as black as Maggie Thatcher's heart and the windscreen wipers have to move faster than Weatherston's legs just to clear enough water from the windscreen to allow some limited visibility. Mere moments later, the rain has gone, the sun is splitting the sky and all you can see for miles around is some of the most wonderful scenery you could ever imagine. Such a remarkable transformation led inexorably (good word that) to consideration of Queen's. They too can provide moments to ruin any day; they can frustrate with errors you wouldn't want to see on a school playing field. But nowadays, and thankfully increasingly often, they can illuminate your Saturday with rapier-like thrusts to the heart of the opposition defence. Proof of this point, as if any follower of the Glorious Hoops would need such verification, came shortly after the interval. We were leading 1-0 without having played particularly well, when we produced a move that would have graced any Champions League table, never mind a third division match in front of 323 hearty souls at Links Park. Stuart Kettlewell watched as a massive clearance swirled in the wind high above his head. As the ball finally came down towards Earth, he played a glorious wee cushioned pass on the volley to Mark Ferry. He looked up and played an equally sweet ball through the channel for Weatherston. He left his marker for dead before trying an audacious chip on the run with his left peg. It was almost perfect, beaten only by the reactions of keeper Reid, who leapt like a salmon to touch the ball over for a corner. Wonderful stuff. Straight from the resulting corner, the ball was cleared upfield and we got ourselves in all sorts of a tangle. Mark Cairns produced a collector's item by miscuing a goal-kick, and we lived dangerously as the ball bobbled about our box before finally being humped into the car park. Magic to mayhem in less than a minute. It could only be Queen's. Thankfully, while the magic was in relatively short supply today, the mayhem was kept to a minimum as we produced a result to make all our rivals at he business end of the table take note. Montrose haven't been having the best of times recently, but we have struggled to beat them in the past before. In the early stages of this encounter, it did look as if we might have a real battle on our hands to bring home the points. Both teams were trying to knock the ball about, but they weren't helped by a serious wind (ask any of the shivering fans on the far terracing how cold it was) and a pitch that although looked fine, actually produced some pretty awful bounces. Montrose had plenty of possession in the opening minutes without producing any sort of a threat to Cairns' goal. Queen's, fielding the same starting XI and substitutes who had seen off Albion Rovers, weren't quite purring, though we did pose enough of a threat to suggest we could make life uncomfortable for the home side. A couple of combinations down the right involving Paton and Trouten gave hope, none more so than after 16 minutes when an old 1-2 between the pair left young Alan in the clear. On this occasion, the final ball didn't match the lead-up work and it was scrambled clear for a corner. Weatherston threatened five minutes later when Ronald put him in the clear, but he ran out of space and options before support could arrive and another corner was all the reward we got. The set-piece went awry, and we then did our best to embarrass ourselves. For most of the afternoon, Sinclair and Reilly were simply superb at the heart of our back line. They were first to the ball, and usually won it. But as this corner was cleared, Richard decided to let the punt go, hoping it would carry through to Cairns. The veteran keeper had to show a turn of speed that belied his 21+years to race from his box to clear and spare Richard's blushes. Talking of blushes, Montrose keeper Andy Reid's face was so red minutes later that he almost heated up the terracing. Ronald put Weatherston in on goal, but the angle looked far too tight as he let fly. His shot was on target, but should have been gathered by Reid with some ease. He let his concentration slip, however, and as he dived to get the low drive, he only ended up in touching it onto his post and into the net. Queen's had been the better side, but few would have expected a gift like this to really set us on our way. Boosted by the score, we pressed forward at every opportunity. Montrose had to pull out all the stops to keep Queen's at bay and McLeod overstepped the mark when he decked Mr Perpetual Motion, Stuart Kettlewell. It takes a fair skelp to keep Stuart still, but the young midfielder took quite some time to recover, and the worry was he might have cracked a rib. Needless to say, he played on until the 75th minute when he was given a well-earned rest and was replaced by Dunn. Queen's got to the break unscathed and some naive youngsters in the Hoops' colours suggested we would dominate now that we had the lead and the wind at our backs. Aye right! Those somewhat longer in the tooth feared a bit of a backlash from our hosts. It duly arrived. They swapped Stewart for Fraser at the interval and played far better into the gale than with it. Queen's on the other hand, struggled for a while to get the range right on our passing. But in all truth, while Montrose did have a better share of the ball, they looked distinctly lacking up front. And apart from the daft spell mentioned earlier, their efforts seldom had us biting our fingernails. The biggest threat came from the left foot of man-of-many clubs Jed Stirling who whipped in a couple of wicked corners to get the heart thumping. Thankfully, we stood our ground - and then showed the commitment we all love to see - by bravely charging down the loose ball on two occasions when home players did get a sight on goal. As the game progressed, we looked more and more dangerous on the break, and could have added to our score long before we did (where have you heard that before?) Dunlop, with a header from a corner, could have buried home hopes, while Weatherston also had chances before he finally made another one count. If the first goal was an embarrassment for the home defence, the second was even worse. It looked fairly routine for either Reid or Tawse to deny the Queen's youngster as he burst through. They decided to perform the after-you-Claude routine, left the ball to each other - and Weatherston accepted the invitation before leaving both in his wake and tapping the ball into the empty net. Two-up w ith less than 10 minutes left, we began to relax, and the boss helped wind down the clock by introducing Canning and Murray for Trouten and Weatherston. A good afternoon got even better in the dying seconds when Paul Paton swung in a dangerous free kick from our left. As players dived about in front of Reid, the ball evaded them all and found its way into the corner of the rigging. Make no mistake, while suspensions and injuries meant this wasn't the best Montrose team we have ever faced, it's a tremendous performance for us to go to Links Park and score three without reply. What could prove equally vital as the league gets towards the serious stuff, is that we avoided any more silly cards. We've got a great run going at the moment and the last thing we need is to be forced to make changes because players saw red - or even yellow. Next up is Brechin in the Scottish Cup. Who knows what that trip holds in store for us? It could be despair; it could be delight ... but isn't that part of the joy of following this special team? Keep the faith.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
