Published: Tuesday, 1st April, 2008 13:30
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Dumbarton 0 Stranraer 1
WATCHING Dumbarton attempt to gain a victory over play-off favourites Stranraer this season is like watching paint dry.
So it was on Saturday, down at the down-in-the-dumps Strathclyde Homes Stadium.
The Wigtonshire team pulled off their fourth victory over them and it was as predictable as the belief that paint must dry sometime.
When you appraised this game in hindsight, you could only conclude that it had 0-0 written all over its script for long periods.
The displays of both sides during a first half when the rain poured down and the wind invaded the marrow was hardly a video of learning and did not add anything to the credibility of the beautiful game.
The first half of the match bore out the theory that nil-nils were made out of what we were seeing but, strangely, on pressure, it was Sons who familiarised themselves with more of the territory on the wide acres.
Admittedly Sons had started the match without the man they had depended upon to bring back scoring days, the injured Michael Moore.
They were also minus trialist striker Kenny Wright who looked lively in his shortened debut.
The second period saw Sons with, again, more of the pressure, but the paint was still drying and the patience growing as thin as a thread.
When Stranraer did score what turned out to be the winning goal, they did so in only one noteworthy and meaningful penetrating raid in the second half.
It came in the 66th minute with its origin in a raid down the right, a cross into the middle by Andrew Gibson, and a finishing header by Gregory Tade.
Four minutes later Sons were reduced to 10 men when Chris Gentile was sent off for a second yellow card, and that limited any thoughts of a fightback.
To be fair to Sons, that was a hard one to take, for neither team deserved what honour there was from winning this poorly contested match. But it only takes one goal to beat a goal-shy opposition.
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