Top dogs see off new boys
COVE RANGERS 1 Masson (90+2 pen) AYR UNITED 2
Dempsey (59 pen), Akinyemi (68)
Lee Bullen isn’t getting carried away with his side’s blistering start to the Championship campaign which leaves them top of the tree.
The Ayr United boss called the victory “three points closer to safety, that’s the way we’ve got to look at it”.
He summed up: “I thought we were outstanding and deserved our two goals. The main disappointment is that we didn’t score more and lost the clean sheet.”
In the opposing dugout, Jim McIntyre believed that his side’s performance was simply not good enough. He said: “There’s no positives to take from that. If you put in that performance every week, then you end up at the bottom of the league.”
The Honest Men continued their unbeaten run to the season as they became the first team to win at Balmoral since April 2021.
The opening 40 minutes were dominated by Ayr. Dipo Akenyemi saw his strike from outside of the box rattle the bar and Sam Ashford had his header kept out on the line by Kyle Gourlay. The best of these chances fell to Mark McKenzie who couldn’t keep his effort down after capitalising on a Cove defensive mix-up.
A flurry of late first-half opportunities almost saw the home side going into the break on top, Robbie Leitch had two chances – one kept out by Albinson and the other brilliantly blocked by Ben Dempsey.
The first half finished in disaster for Cove when top scorer and club captain Mitch Megginson went down for the second time off the ball. He was replaced by Gerry McDonagh and Cove will hope that last season’s League One top scorer isn’t out for long.
Another promising free-kick was wasted in the 49th minute when Akinyemi fired harmlessly over. A golden chance went begging once again for the visitors inn the 53rd minute.
Akinyemi cut the ball back to McKenzie whose effort was straight at Gourlay.
Six minutes later Ayr finally got their break when Reynolds was judged to have handled the ball from a cross, a penalty was awarded and was calmly rolled past the diving Gourlay by Dempsey to give the visitors a deserved lead.
Akinyemi’s dream start to Scottish football was made even better in the 68th minute when he met Ashford’s drilled cross at the back post and lifted over Gourlay to make him the league’s top scorer with four for the campaign.
Cove were awarded a penalty two minutes into injury time when McDonagh was brought down in the box. Jamie Masson expertly fired past Gourlay who dived the right way.
However, this was too little too late for the home side.
COVE R:
(4-4-2) Gourlay 7, Logan 5, Reynolds 4 (Masson 75), Ross 6 (Neill 31 5), Dunne 5, Scully 6, Gilmour 5, Vigurs 5 (Longstaff 67 5), Leitch 6 (McIntosh 67 5), Fyvie 5, Megginson 6 (McDonagh 45 5).
AYR UTD:
(4-4-2) Albinson 7, Houston 7, Reading 6, Musonda 6, Kirk 6, Murdoch 6, Dempsey 8, O’Connor 7 (Finn Ecrepont 87 5), Ashford 7 (Bangala 86 5), Akinyemi 7, McKenzie 6 (McGinty 90+2 5).