Bathgate pay the penalty for spot-kick miss as they go down at home

Mar 3 2011 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

Bathgate pay the penalty for spot-kick miss as they go down at home

GRAEME LOVE watched his side gunned down by a deadly treble from visiting frontman Bryan Duell to lose more ground in the Superleague title race and waste a third successive penalty — but he believes there were plenty of positives to take from the match.

The Bathgate Thistle manager insists his side dominated their match against Forfar West End and were desperately unlucky to take anything from their Superleague encounter.

He said: “It was a strange game in that it was a poor result but not a poor performance.

“We went into the match looking to kick on and build a run of results but unfortunately that didn’t happen. We were 2-0 down at half-time but I felt we had dominated the entire first-half, the first five minutes apart.

“Missing a penalty didn’t help and had we scored it I think it would have given us the confidence to go on.

“After the break we missed a lot of chances and had we scored one of those I think we could have gone on to win the game.

“It was disappointing to lose but we played some good stuff and to be honest I’d be more concerned if there were no positives to take from the game.

“We have Lochee this weekend and although that is always a tough match we seem to always do well up there so we’ll go up in confident mood.”

Duell fired the visitors in front with a free-kick before Bathgate were awarded a spot-kick.

Having missed the last two for the Jags, Alex Lurinsky passed the penalty baton to midfielder Marco Andreoni but he too failed to find the net although his effort was acrobatically stopped by keeper Stephen Vanderdeyl.

Duell then steered home a penalty of his own to double his side’s advantage before the in-form frontman notched his 21st of a prolific campaign in the second-half to complete his treble.

Andreoni crashed a shot off the underside of the bar as Bathgate searched for a way back into the match.

They did eventually manage a consolation strike after a stramash in the Forfar box ended with John Leiper prodding the ball over the line.

Bathgate Thistle: Lunn, W Wilson, C Wilson, A Neill, Leiper, McCulloch, Andreoni, Fallon (Frater, Forbes), Lurinsky, Jeffrey, F Love. Subs: Gupwell, G Love, Easton, McCafferty.