Missing players made win hard work

Kelburne 3s returned to action at the weekend and were made to fight hard for their victory.

With a number of key players missing, the Paisley side were forced to use a mixture of youth and experience.

Kelburne struggled to get going early on and pressure from Dumfries saw them fall two goals behind around the 20-minute mark.

However, to their credit, the Paisley side battled back with new captain David Bone leading the charge in a bid to get the young side back to their best.

And the encouragement appeared to do the trick, with Jay Berry smashing home to reduce the deficit after 25 minutes.

Kelburne almost immediately equalised from the restart but a Craig Speirs deflection was ruled out by the umpire, despite the protests from Kelburne.

The hosts headed into the second half high in confidence, evident in their passing play.

And they were to be rewarded as Robert Martin stepped up to clinically strike from a short corner, to give the Dumfries keeper no chance.

The comeback was nearly complete when Rory Anderson capitalised on some slack Dumfries defending and some pinball in the box to fire home from close range.

But the game wasn’t finished there and Kelburne almost let all their hard work come unravelled as they allowed Dumfries an equaliser, having taken their foot off of the gas.

Dumfries continued to crank up the pressure in a bid to find a winner, but keeper Matthew Retson was in fine form to stop them in their tracks.

Time was now against both sides, with a winner looking unlikely.

But it was to eventually come the way of Kelburne, with Sandeep Singh’s strike sending the boys into a 4-3 lead.