St Cuthbert Wanderers hit by second half goal spree for second week running

Second half goal sprees are continuing to thwart St Cuthbert Wanderers’ hopes of their first points of the season.

A week after going down 3-0 at Stranraer, the Kirkcudbright side lost 5-0 at South of Scotland League champs Abbey Vale – with all eight goals coming in the second halves of both games.

Boss Ian Clark said: “If you look at the last two games, we’ve been 0-0 after 55 minutes in both.

“Then one finishes 5-0 and the other finishes 3-0, so we’ve conceded eight goals in the space of 60 minutes of football.

“The park plays a little bit of a factor in that. Abbey Vale had done well as the park was in good shape to start with but then it started to cut up.

“I think it comes back to fitness and the message after the game was if you think you’re doing enough, you’re not, and if you know you’re not doing enough you need to do double the work.”

Saints had lost 11-1 at home to Vale last month but must have been hopeful of claiming a point after a goalless first half on Saturday.

However, sub Phil Middlemiss scored a hat-trick and Curtiss Wilson and Lewis Downie also scored as the hosts took all three points.

Clark said: “I think there’s plenty of positives. For 60 minutes we held Abbey Vale, we played and competed really well then a few factors come into play. It’s a heavy grass pitch and the legs start to go.

“The fans and committee who were at the game and saw how we played said the same thing.

“We now need to take that 60 minute spell and take it over whole game.

“I think the boys ran out of steam, you could see the legs going.

“We competed for 60 minutes and I think everybody was shocked we’d held Abbey Vale after an 11-1 defeat to them the last time. I take my hat off to them for competing