William Hill Scottish Cup
Saturday 20th January 2018
Bayview Stadium
East Fife 0
Brora Rangers 1 (Williamson 11’)
East Fife XI: Goodfellow, Dunsmore, Kane, Page, Linton, Millar (Thomson 45’), Slattery, Lamont (Wilson 81’), Wilkie, Smith, Duggan
Subs: Watson, Mutch, Cordery, Willis
Booked: Wilkie
Brora Rangers XI: Malin, Pickles, Duff, Williamson (Ross 82’), MacDonald, Graham, MacLean, Morrison, Nicolson, MacKay (Pickles 76’), Sutherland (Brindle 83’)
Subs: MacLeod, Lisle, Campbell, Hoban
Booked: Pickles, MacDonald, Graham, Brindle
Referee: David Munro
Attendance: 685
East Fife crashed out of the Scottish Cup following a 1-0 defeat at home to Highland League side Brora Rangers. Manager Darren Young made one change to the side that conquered Alloa Athletic last time out with Kevin Smith replacing the injured Mark Docherty in the starting line-up.
As with the previous game, the home side were slow to get into the game, with the visitors looking the sharper side in the early stages and almost opened the scoring on the 7th minute when good build up play saw the ball fall to Mark Nicolson on the edge of the area but he could only drag his shot wide of target. The warning signs had been there for East Fife and they found themselves behind with 11 minutes played when Colin Williamson was allowed to head home unchallenged from Gavin Morrison’s corner. Steven MacKay had the chance to double the lead on 23 minutes when he got on the end of a free kick but his header was straight at Ryan Goodfellow in the East Fife goal.
East Fife had their first real opportunity on 36 minutes when Scott Linton won the ball in the middle of the park, laid the ball off for Pat Slattery who picked out Chris Duggan with a cross from the left but his shot was well blocked by the Brora defence. Linton sent a free kick wide of the post from 25-yards on 37 minutes in the only other action of note in the first half.
East Fife introduced new signing Craig Thomson from the bench at the start of the second half and almost and an immediate impact when he twice broke through the Brora defence but found he cross deflected behind for a corner on both occasions. The home side had certainly started the second half better than the first and had their first chance of an equaliser on 53 minutes when Kevin Smith knocked down Mark Lamont cross into the path of Slattery but his right-footed effort was wide of the right-hand post.
Ally MacDonald went close for the visitors on 54 minutes when he narrowly failed to turn Scott Graham’s cross into the net before East Fife should have equalised a minutes later. Duggan took advantage of a poor pass back from MacKay to take the ball round Brora ‘keeper Joe Malin but just missed the target from a tight angle. East Fife were agonisingly close to an equaliser again on 57 minutes when Linton just clipped the outside of the post with a free kick from the edge of the box.
Smith made a good break forward on 73 minutes and played in Thomson down the right who cut inside but his right-footed effort flashed past the post as East Fife continued to press. Chris Kane had one final opportunity to force a replay when he got on the end of Thomson’s cross from the right but his downward header was wide of target.