Dumbarton & Vale of Leven Reporter | Sport

Tuesday, 6th January, 2009

Published: Tuesday, 9th October, 2007 10:00

SNORE DRAW

By Gare Clyde

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Dumbarton 0 Forfar Athletic 0

Image related to story, see caption or article text

DRAW: Sons could not break the deadlock

Pic by: Donald Fullarton

SONS took a step backwards on Saturday when they met bottom of the league Forfar the Rock.

For, after the euphoria of Links Park the previous week, the same players - with David McNaught added in place of Robert Cambell - who ended that match produced another one of their too many old stories which have cost them points this season and blighted the club’s ambitions.

Sons had harnessed a major proportion of the pressure, as they did recently against Stenhousemuir and on various other occasions which resulted in post match regrets . . .

But they failed to aspire as a team capable of penetrating and punishing a spoiling tactic employed by the visitors which, and let us be honest, could have won them the game in the last five minutes.

That was the almost defining moment when Forfar’s on loan striker Chris McKie penetrated the Sons defensive cover and, on a homing mission, missed with an aplomb which he will not want to remember.

Dumbarton attacked, sometimes sincerely with reasonable threat, and sometimes naively with zero effect.

But the buck struck the buffers when the ball reached the frontline of attackers. The pincer movement worked but the firing squad produced damp squibs.

Like the postmen, Sons strikers did not turn up for work on Saturday. They failed to deliver and stamp their authority and meaningful menace on the game.

Nil-nil, some football, nae goals! That is becoming a continuing story and a sorry saga of this Sons side.

I do recall that they hit the post in the first half but the head which met the ball was not a striker. It was centre half Michael O’Byrne.

You, fairly, ask the question why at Montrose they could score and win?

They thoroughly deserved, and worked hard for that victory but netted only one goal to achieve it, against all the odds. The scorer was one Robert Campbell, with four strikes to his belt and he is not a striker.

He was banned from the ground on Saturday, but there is nothing sinister about that. The poor guy was laid low with the contagious condition of shingles.

I have sympathy with Robert but, deep down, I have a slightly nauseating wish that his contagion in goal scoring could be caught by his striking team mates.

These Sons of kidology gave the punters every reason for hope in the early stages of the game.

Ryan Russell breached the Berlin Wall, which was Forfar’s last fortress all afternoon, and his shot was whisker close.

Mark Canning was next in the queue with a drive which hardly said hullo to the sky. Then Brian McPhee got into the act and his cross from the right was cleared short of the near post with the goalkeeper as adrift as the Vital Spark.

Tommy Coyne was clean through but his cutting edge was blunt, weak and soft as putty.

But, in the 35th minute it looked like the long wait was over when O’Byrne rose into the air to meet a Niall Henderson corner and his header struck a post. Legs ruled that goalmouth as the ball went astray but not one boot was pertinent enough to finish the job.

Now had that one gone in, the match could have changed. That is a guess, not a prediction, but the Sons were still the grinders trying to manufacture goals when the half-time whistle sounded.

At the start of the second period it was Forfar who came out of their shell and boy did keeper Davy Crawford know all about that.

In contrast, you could have fallen into sleep waiting for Sons to construct a scoring move and prove that Forfar were the loons on the day

Then, in the final fifteen minutes, they came alive again and gained urgency, or was it panic, with continuous assaults on keeper Sandy Wood’s front garden. Near things there were, but Wood and his defence survived the too late late show.

I do not think that any team in this division should go into any game expecting to beat their opposition, but I did think that Sons were a pretty solid bet to win this one. However they failed to produce a winning blend to process a win while Forfar, hingin’ in at times, could have hung the home side with a breakaway goal.

That can happen if you have strikers whose cylinders are malfunctioning.

It was a disappointing, exasperating, and clinically unsound day for Dumbarton, and their view of the top of the league is diminishing in a miserable mist.

The sponsors man of the match was hard-working midfielder Henderson.

Dumbarton: Crawford; Geggan, Haswell, Canning, O’Byrne, Tiernan, Henderson, Russell, McPhee, Coyne, McNaught (Gentile 58). Subs not used: Brittain, Yule, Orr, keeper Nugent.

Forfar Athletic: Wood; McNally, Smith, Dunn, Ovenstone, Fotheringham, Grady, Kerrigan, McKie, J.Fraser (McCallum 58), Kilgannon. Subs not used: Rattray, G.Fraser, Lombardi, keeper Reid.

Referee: Anthony Law.

Attendance: 668.

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