Young ‘disappointed’ as Fife lose out to sloppy goals

EAST FIFE 0 PETERHEAD 2

East Fife boss Darren Young admitted defensive frailties cost his side any chance of Irn-Bru Cup progress.

Goals either side of the break from Marc Lawrence and Scott Adams sealed the win for the Blue Toon.

But both were certainly preventable from an East Fife point of view, something Young conceded.

He said: “The two goals we lost are terrible at any level. We know that and spoke about it in the changing room. “It’s really disappointing. “We made four or five changes to freshen things up and give guys some game time and opportunities. But if you give away goals like that it’s going to cost you, especially when you don’t take your chances at the other end.”

The Fifers handed starts to Thomas Cordery, Ben Reilly, Scott Linton, Kyle Wilkie and Kyle Wilson while Mark Lamont made a welcome return from injury to take a seat on the bench.

It took the visitors just a couple of minutes to take the lead as the game cracked into life from the first whistle.

Home keeper Cordery was unable to claim what looked a routine cross and the ball dropped kindly to Marc Lawrence who finished with ease.

Peterhead almost stretched their lead shortly after the 15 minute mark when former Dunfermline striker Allan Smith’s header dropped a foot wide of the Fife goal.

Fife defender Ben Gordon had a sight of goal when he met a Kyle Wilkie free-kick but couldn’t get his shot over the line, while new signing Scott Linton’s free-kick crashed back off the post.

Fife started the second half on the front foot and had an early sight of goal when Greg Hurst managed to work space for himself inside the box.

The on-loan St Johnstone striker got his shot away but failed to trouble Fraser Hobday.

Peterhead did well to weather the storm and added a second when Scott Adams took advantage of sloppy defending to beat Cordery.