The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Home comforts a positive for Young after life on road
Darren Young is looking forward to enjoying some home comforts this Saturday after a gruelling couple of weeks on the road.
The Methil men had clearly done something to upset the fixture list schedulers, having to travel to Stranraer and then Peterhead back to back in mid-December.
But Young’s men rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, making the long journey home from both games with three points in the bag.
At Balmoor on Saturday East Fife went level on 32 points at the top of League 1 along with Airdrie and Raith Rovers ahead of this weekend’s derby with John McGlynn’s men.
Young says it’ll be great to be back at Bayview in front of the Fife fans and heaped praise on his men for racking up another victory on the road.
“We set the guys a target for the second quarter and we’ve beaten it again now so that’s the second time this season we’ve done that,” said the Fife boss.
“It’s tight at the top with everything to play for.
“But if someone said to us that at halfway through the season we’d be top then we’d have bitten their hand off.
“The guys have been giving us everything and we now look to start the third quarter on zero points with the big derby against Raith at home.
“We took a great crowd away to Stark’s Park so hopefully we can get another big crowd at home on Saturday and give them something to cheer about.”
Peterhead could be a tough place to visit at this time of year but conditions at Balmoor were pretty much perfect.
The Fifers were left chasing shadows and Peterhead almost made their good work pay off when Jack Leitch got a decent shot away from the edge of the box which Brett Long smothered.
It was one way traffic and, with a quarter of an hour gone, Peterhead should have taken the lead.
Simon Ferry worked the ball wide to David Ferguson whose cross into the box was dangerous but could not be converted by Rory McAllister.
Scott Brown then tried his luck from range as Peterhead pressed.
Just after the 20 minute mark the deadlock was broken against the run of play.
Scott Hooper appeared to have snuffed out a Fife attack but his pass back towards Greg Fleming was woefully short and collected by Danny Denholm, who finished well.
Peterhead looked anything but a side trying to get themselves out of potential relegation bother, looking slick moving forward.
But their finishing let them down, Leitch again wasting a glorious chance to pull his side level shortly after the break.
East Fife continued to grind away, though, and looked to have settled any nerves with just over 10 minutes to go.
Again Peterhead had only themselves to blame, gifting away possession.
Ryan Wallace took advantage, feeding Aaron Dunsmore, whose cross was turned into an empty net by Scott Agnew.
In the closing minutes Peterhead got the goal their play had merited when Scott Brown lashed home from the edge of the box.