Cowdenbeath 0 Stranraer 1

Stranraer continued their winning ways with a hard fought victory at a cold and blustery Central Park Cowdenbeath.

Stranraer started the match positively pinning the home side back and it took only eight minutes for the deadlock to be broken. After some slack play in the Cowdenbeath defence Kevin Finlayson showed he was alert and pounced on a loose ball. Bryan Gilfillan wasn't aware of Finlayson's presence and made a clumsy late tackle on the winger. Referee Kevin Toner had no choice but to award the penalty much to the disgust of the Cowdenbeath fans and management. Indeed Toner took a whole minute calming down Beath's assistant manager Micky Weir. After the long delay top scorer Michael Moore calmly sent Andy Carlin the wrong way to put the Blues 1up.

Cowdenbeath responded shortly later when Dave Mowat turned well and from eighteen yards his shot was well saved by McCondichie. Cowden had another good long range effort from Dene Shields but the on form Blues keeper tipped the ball over the bar for a corner. At the other end after a towering McCondichie clearance David Graham found himself clean through but his control let him down, but the ball fell nicely for Michael Moore and his first time net bound shot was deflected wide for a corner.

Stranraer played on the counter attack in the second half and rarely threatened the Cowden goal although on couple of occasions the Blues outnumbered the Cowden defence but failed to get a decent shot on target. Michael Moore got booked at the beginning of the half when he went in for a 50-50 challenge with the goalkeeper. The goalie came out second best and after a short delay the ref decided he would book Moore. 2 minutes after this Cowden's John McKeown decided he would retaliate on Moore and his reckless tackle got him a booking. Another example of a Stranraer breakaway was when Graham broke clear, the ball fell to Sharp at an angle and he fired wildly wide of the far post.

Stranraer were a little fortunate when a cross into the box found Innes Ritchie at the back post and his free header went inches past the post. In the sixtieth minute McCondichie saved with his feet after a goalmouth scramble. Cowden almost snatched a draw in injury time when Kevin Gordon's 25 yarder was expertly tipped over by the Blues keeper again.

Man of the Match: Stephen Swift - Has a great engine and was solid in defence and attack all afternoon. Also good performances from the rest of the defence and Andy McCondichie.

Overall Summary - The least said about this game the better. The only thing to take out of it is the fact that we continued our winning run and promotion push.

Attendance: 232