The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)

SEALSDONSD­UBAIWIN

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flowing for Cosgrove and he did brilliantl­y with his second, taking a reverse pass from winger Gary MackayStev­en, a half-time substitute, and rifling beyond Rashed at his near post.

At the moment little seems to faze the former Wigan and Carlisle man and long may that continue.

He was denied a hat-trick by the referee, firstly for fouling a defender while heading in a Shinnie corner and then being blatantly cleaned out as he challenged for a loose ball.

Mark Reynolds and Gary Mackay-Steven both returned to action in the second half, with the latter not featuring since the Betfred Cup final defeat to Celtic and Reynolds last taking to the pitch in the abandoned pre-season friendly with Cove.

Mackay-Steven looked to have lost little of his ingenuity, as he regularly looked to slalom past Saif down the right.

The Dons saw out the closing 20 minutes with little alarm and with their frontman prolonging his hot streak in front of goal, the trip back to Aberdeen today will be a happy one. DIBBA AL-HISN (4-2-3-1) – Salem Rashed 6; Al-Kaebi 5, Al-Saroumi 5 (Al-Wahdani 32), El Sayed 6 (Saoud Rashed 67), Saif 5 (Al-Hamoudi 73), Al-Nemri 5 (Abdulrahma­n 46), Al-Mansouri 6, Al-Nuami 6 (Malallah Al-Dhahouri 76)), Abdulhamee­d 5, Ahmed 5 (Obaid 46), Lopes 6 (H Rashed 46). Subs not used – none. 30, ABERDEEN (4-4-2) – Lewis 6 (Cerny 64); Ball 6 (Virtanen 84), McKenna 7, Considine 6 (Forrester 76), Shinnie 6, Wright 6 (McGinn 64), Gleeson 6 (Ferguson 64), Campbell 6 (Reynolds 46), McLennan 7 (Mackay-Steven 46), Cosgrove 8, Wilson 7 (E Ross 84). Subs not used – none.

Man of the match – Sam Cosgrove. It was probably more competitiv­e than we wanted it and there were some really reckless tackles. I don’t know what it is when we come here.

I do think it’s important to have a game at the end of the week that the players have that focus to look forward to.

From the last game in December to the Scottish Cup tie, we do need something in between. It’s not about the result – it’s about getting the players moving again and thankfully we’ve come through without any injury or incident.

The tempo was decent and I would have liked to have scored a few more goals. I thought we had a perfectly good goal ruled out and should have had a penalty, but I’m not going to criticise referees any more.

It was quite a technical game to start with but once the first two or three challenges go in, that starts the ball rolling. The referee has to be strong on that early on. But it’s good for big Sam – his run for the first one was excellent and finish for the second was a different class. It was good to get Gary Mackay-Steven and Mark Reynolds back, as well as a couple of the young lads.

Once we go back, Shay Logan, Tommie Hoban and maybe Stevie May will be in full training. Mark, Hoban and Devlin reinforce the back-line; we’ve lost Max Lowe as well so the last couple of games of December it was a real strain to patch up a back four. It gives us more options.

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 ??  ?? Returning: Gary Mackay-Steven in action
Returning: Gary Mackay-Steven in action
 ??  ?? Challenged: Scott Wright is taken down
Challenged: Scott Wright is taken down
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