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Late heartache for The Fife

Ladbrokes League 1, Bayview Stadium, Tuesday 15^th November 2016

East Fife 2 (Smith 31’ Taggart og 74’)

Alloa Athletic 2 (Longworth 58’, Hynd 89’)

Man of the Match: Chris Kane

East Fife XI: Goodfellow, Slattery, Kane, Page, Kerr, Lamont (Naysmith 73’), Brown, Insall (Austin 87’), Smith, Wilkie, Wallace (Mercer 70’)

Subs Not Used: O’Hara

Booked: Wilkie

Alloa Athletic XI: Parry, Taggart, Waters, Graham, Marr, Holmes (Hynd 84’), Cawley, Robertson, Spence, Longworth (Kirkpatrick 73’), Flannigan

Subs Not Used: A Wilson, Hoggan, L Wilson, Scullion, Goodwin

Booked: None

Referee: Alan Newlands

Attendance: 412

East Fife welcome 3^rd placed Alloa Athletic to Bayview on Tuesday night in a fixture rearranged due to the visitor’s progress in the Irn-Bru Cup. East Fife made four changes to the team that lost to Livingston 10 days ago with Ryan Goodfellow, Jonathan Page, Mark Lamont and Jamie Insall replacing Scott Mercer, Gary Naysmith, Kevin O’Hara and the suspended Mark Hurst.

The first real chance of the match arrived on 17 minutes when Wallace did well to lose his man on the left-hand side but a combination of on Parry and Graham were able to scramble his cut back clear with Insall waiting to pounce. Insall then had a glorious chance to give the home side the lead when he was sent through by Smith but was denied by the legs of Parry.

East Fife were piling on the pressure and took a deserved lead on 31 minutes. Lamont played in Smith down the left who out-muscled Marr on the touch line before racing in on goal to fire past Parry. East Fife had a penalty claimed waved away by referee Alan Newlands 3 minutes before the break when Smith looked to have been brought down in the box, replays however proved that there was no contact and the striker had instead lost his footing. Alloa’s best chance of the half arrived just before the whistle when Marr connected with a Flannigan free kick but Goodfellow was well placed to make the save.

The home fans thought East Fife had extended their lead shortly after the break when Kane rose to head home Lamont’s out-swinging corner however their joy was short lived as the linesman’s flag was raised to signal the ball had gone out of play. Alloa were growing into the game and levelled the match on 58 minutes when the East Fife defence failed to deal with a bouncing ball in the box and Longworth took advantage to score from 5-yards. A deflected Wilkie shot forced a fine save out of Parry before Cawley was unlucky not to put Alloa ahead on 72 minutes when he saw his shot bounce back off the post. Instead 2 minutes later it was East Fife who scored next. Insall took advantage of a deflection to race down the right and his cross from the by-line was turned into his own net by Taggart. East Fife were really holding on towards the end but the visitor’s grabbed on equaliser in the final minute when Hynd was on hand to head home Flannigan’s corner.

After the Match Gary Naysmith spoke to East Fife TV:

“I think the performance deserved the victory and to lose the goal that we lost so late in the game it’s like a double whammy. I’m disappointed, I’m not going to hide that, but it’s a game that we should have seen out, going ahead twice. But we have to look at the positives; we played against an Alloa team that a lot of people tipped to win the league. The last couple of game I don’t feel we really imposed ourselves but I don’t think anyone could say that tonight. I think, I know we were the batter team and Jim Goodwin agreed with us that we were the better team and that we should have won. Although it’s nice to hear it makes it doubly disappointing when we’ve not won. The lad played well and as I said last week in the first half against Livingston they’ve gave me the lot and we’ve came out today and the lad have giving me everything again and once we cut out the silly mistakes and get that win I’m sure our season will take off.”