Belief remains strong in Blue Brazil ranks

ANNAN ATHLETIC 1 COWDENBEATH 1

Brad Smith is adamant Cowdenbeath can still climb off the bottom of League Two after they claimed a deserved draw away to Annan on Saturday.

The Blue Brazil are eight points adrift of Edinburgh City at the foot of the table and haven’t won a game since August.

However, striker Smith, who fired his side ahead at Galabank, insists nobody at Central Park is giving up hope of avoiding a second successive season in the relegation play-off.

He said: “Of course we still believe.

“It’s a real battle to get back in there but we’re still working hard and we’re definitely improving even though we aren’t getting results.

“The way we’re playing, we’ve got to get a break some time soon.

“Once we get a win, the ball will start rolling for us and hopefully we can go on and chase Edinburgh City and Clyde.

“Everybody here believes we can do it.”

Cowden deserved their lead at the break after Smith finished off a fine build-up from seven yards in the 29th minute.

But the hosts levelled when Rabin Omar touched home a Connor O’Keefe free-kick in the 71st minute.

There was a controversial moment with 10 minutes left when Cowden’s Jamie Pyper was sent off for a foul on Blair Henderson on the edge of his own box.

Annan were raging, however, when the officials decided to award a free-kick instead of a penalty.

Smith added: “I thought we could have come away with a win but we did well to hold out and get a point after going down to 10 men so that should give us a lot of confidence.”

Boss Gary Bollan said: “We deserved our point.

“We could have defended their goal better.

“Normally you’re happy with a point at Annan but overall I’m disappointed we didn’t go up the road with three points.”