Castle Rovers Cup Quarter-Final at Hazlehead on Saturday 12th November
Report by Barry Sim
JS XI advanced into the last four of the Castle Rovers Cup following a convincing victory over Continental in terrible conditions at Hazlehead.
The home side started brightly and created a few early chances but couldn’t make the breakthrough. The heavy surface made neat, crisp passing difficult and concentration levels had to be kept high.
JS XI opened the scoring after 20 minutes when some neat play resulted in Reid firing into the bottom corner from 20 yards.
This settled the home side and they doubled their lead a few minutes later when a good move saw the ball find it’s way to Dunn on the right and after his shot was parried by the keeper, Crighton slid in to make it 2-0.
JS continued to pressure their visitors and chances came for Crighton, Dunn, Reid, Martin Sim and Hume but the third goal evaded them.
The home side were awarded a penalty when a Continental defender controlled with his arm in the box. However, Reid’s spot kick was well saved by the keeper, diving low to his right to keep his side in it.
Half-time: 2-0
JS were playing into a setting sun in the second half and with conditions worsening, a lot of tackles were being misjudged and the referee did well to keep the game flowing.
The visitors were playing on the break when they could and had a few half efforts on goal but nothing that really troubled JS. The Continental keeper, who improved after his fine penalty save, made a few decent saves to deny JS.
The third goal came when Crighton squared for strike partner Hume who slid the ball into an empty net.
JS were awarded a second penalty when Hume was brought down by the full back but Dunn saw his kick saved once again by the keeper who this time guessed correctly to his left. Another fine save.
The away side were reduced to 10 men when their midfielder was shown two yellow cards in quick succession. This didn’t stop them attacking though and Sim made a smart stop to keep it at 3-0.
Continental did pull one back in the closing minutes when Sim saved well again but the ball fell kindly for McCartny to finish into an empty net from outside the box.
With seconds to go JS substitue Andrews struck a thunderbolt from just inside the box to make it four and this completed the scoring in an entertaining match which saw both teams give their all in extremely difficult conditions.
JS XI now await the winners of Feughside and Torry for a place in the Final.
Full Time: 4-1
JS XI: J.Sim; Mackay; M.Sim; Enston; Cheyne; Shand; Dunn; Stewart; Crighton; Hume; Reid. Subs: Dempsey; Hunter, B.Sim; Boyd; Andrews
Continental: Struthers; McDonald; Moir; Kelman; Duncan; Elliot; Tanser; Massie; McCartny; Ogg; Kerr. Subs: Govci.
Referee: A Sheppherd
