We line up;
Samson
Griffin - MacKenzie - Palenik - Dixon
Daquin - McDonald - Robertson - Swankie
Davidson - Zemlik
So, no Worrell, and Davidson in for McHale.
We're attacking the Shankly end and get into Morton right from the kick off. After a couple of minutes Swankie has a shot deflect wide for a corner. Daquin takes it, it's half cleared back out to the left, Kevin McDonald collects, coolly makes space and feeds Daquin who has time to pick out his cross. It's a teaser curling towards the keeper who waits for it to reach him. Palenik sprints for the ball, nicks it almost from the keeper's hands, carries it past him and hammers the ball into the empty net. Two and a half minutes, and we're ahead! A great start.
We relax and take total control. Davidson has a horrendous miss after nine minutes. He's sent through by a Zemlik flick, his marker stumbles and he's clear 10 yards out with the keeper flat footed, but Bob balloons it over the bar! Shocking miss.
After 13 minutes MacKenzie heads in from a corner, but the ref disallows it for pusing. This sets the pattern for the match. Any physical challenge in an attacking position is penalised. Pish! It's not bloody netball, ffs!
23 minutes in and there's high drama in the home end. Wullie Reilly rises in the Derry and announces he's left his cooker on! Poor Wullie has to head for the exit, nae word yet if he got there in time. Update to follow.
It's 24 minutes before Morton have their first serious attack. It's a free kick 25 yards out which is chipped feebly into Samson's arms.
We're still cruising it. The midfield is running the match, and the defence is comfortable and easily dominating Morton when they try to come forward.
After 29 minutes Griffin sends Daquin clear down the right. He carries the ball a bit too far towards the touchline instead of driving infield and committing the last defender. His cross is too far ahead of Zemlik, but nearly sneaks in at the far post with the keeper beaten.
Zemlik is booked for persistent fouling - the ref just won't allow him to challenge the defenders, but they're allowed to batter into him and push him.
Unbelievably Morton equalise after 40 minutes, totally against the run of play, with their first real shot. Stevenson breaks down the right, turns the ball aimlessly infield, but it slips through McDonald's legs. Templeman reaches the ball and flicks it back to the edge of the area and Graham scores with a fine finish. Samson gets a hand to the ball but can't keep it out of the roof of the net. Shocker!
Kevin McDonald is booked for dissent just before the half time whistle. Every time he tries to bring the ball down and play football he's getting mugged by a posse of Morton spoilers. The ref lets them get away with it as often as not and Kevin is rightly pissed off with the feeble refereeing. The ref, Steven Finnie, is unbelievably fussy about pushing when the ball is in the air, but lets players manhandle the player in posession when the ball in on the ground.
Anyway, it's half time and we can't quite believe we're not leading. We were streets ahead of Morton but couldn't get the second goal which would have settled things down. If it had come quickly we could have taken Morton apart, but we have to start all over again in the second half. To be frank, it's largely the strikers' fault. The midfield has been excellent, the defence seldom troubled, but the strikers haven't really been good enough. Zemlik is getting nothing from the ref, and the obvious answer is to replace him with Lyle.
However, Lyle does come on for the start of the second half, but it's Davidson who's gone off. Huge surprise! Could be a big mistake.
Morton start well, encouraged by their equaliser. Samson makes a good save turning over a weird looping McAllister header. McDonald hits back with a great driving run and shot. He leathers the ball ferociously straight at the keeper from 18 yards. Just a little to either side and he would probably have scored.
The ref Finnie books Robertson in dubious and controversial style after 57 minutes. Robbo goes in hard, but legally I thought. The ref was looking the other way, turned, saw the Morton player on the ground, and booked Scottie! How the **** can a ref give a yellow card for a challenge he never saw!!! He didn't check with the linesman - just pulled out the card. Finnie is acting like a real pillock now. The ball goes bobbling over the Morton byline - for a corner we think. The ref moves into position for a corner - then signals it's a goal kick and jogs upfield pleased with his wee joke! Prat!!!
Sturm comes on for Zemlik after 64 minutes. It's a relief because the referee hates his style and is in a card happy mood.
Morton miss their best chance of the game after 65 minutes. A Finlayson cross finds Templeman charging into the box, but he heads well over when he should have buried the chance.
Wee Jay Shields bravely clatters Milan late - he needs treatment. Shields is booked, but must be hoping Milan didn't notice who chopped him!
We're looking disjointed. The pattern's gone from our game, and we're really not looking like getting the three points from this one.
Then after 74 minutes Dixon brings the ball out of defence, plays it forward to Lyle who flicks it first time out to Swankie on the left. Gavin skins his man in classic style and sends over a perfect hanging cross that just screams "goal!". Robertson is coming in at the far post, rises, seems to meet it perfectly, but the balls comes down off the bar just as everyone is about to start celebrating. Fortunately Sturm is first to the rebound and just manages to scramble the ball into the net. Ya beauty!!!!
McHale comes on for McDonald, who's been a bit out sorts in the second half after his booking and the lack of protection from the ref. Sensible move with the game against Hamilton next week.
We nearly get a third when Lyle plays Daquin in. The keeper pulls off a good save, and the ball just pings past Jani who nearly had a tap in. Freddie puts in a great tackle followed by a good run down the right to ease the pressure as Morton chase the game. Daquin has had a pretty decent game.
Three minutes injury time is spent mainly in the Morton half as we keep posession and take the points. There's a huge cheer of relief when the whistle goes.
A very mixed game this one. We utterly dominated the first half, but it was worrying that we couldn't put the game out of Morton's reach then. Rae still hasn't got the strikers sorted out. Zemlik and Davidson didn't work well together. The second half was much more even, but Morton didn't create any good chances apart from the Templeman one. Surprisingly they caused us quite a few problems in the air, so there was always a danger that a knock down or flick on could lead to a goal. Over the 90 minutes we deserved the win, but we need to do much better than this.
The midfield was poor by its normal high standards in the second half. The way to play against Robertson and McDonald is obviously to mob them and use your arms, and hope you've got a poor referee.
Hard to pick out a man of the match, but I'd go for Palenik who bossed the Morton strikers in the first half, and was rock solid when we came under pressure at times in the second half.
This was a big three points with Saints beating Hamilton. We'd have been sick if we'd blown this one - but we got away with it.