Cowdenbeath 1 - 3 Morton

Cowdenbeath 1 - McQuade (31 pen)
Morton 3 - Weatherson (7, 51), MacFarlane (12)

Att: 486

Morton eased into the 2nd round of the Co-operative Insurance Cup with a comfortable win at Central Park.

As expected Davie Irons stuck with the 4-3-3 that he used against Dumbarton the Saturday before. The only difference to the team was the return of Allan McManus who replaced Alex Walker after he served out his 1 match suspension at the Strathclyde Homes Stadium.

As seems to have been a regular occurence - the St. Mirren game aside - we started this match brightly and began to fade as the match went on. Possibly because the players had become complacent thinking the match was won. More of that later but now back to our great start. We took the lead after just 7 minutes when Ryan McGuffie popped up in an advanced position. He cut back on himself and clipped a ball to the back post with his left foot, Peter Weatherson arrived right on cue to power a header past Hay in the Cowden goal. McGuffie has been featuring at right-back this season and has been making a good job of it for my money.



5 minutes later Neil MacFarlane scored his first goal for Morton to make it 2-0. And what a goal it was too. A Stevie Masterton free-kick was blocked and the ball rolled into MacFarlane's path 30 yards from goal slightly to the right of the goal, and the experienced midfielder pinged the ball into the keeper's top left hand corner first time and without breaking his stride. I'd be surprised if we see a better goal all season.


We were on easy street now, or so we thought as the referee and linesman had different ideas when they awarded a controversial penalty in the 3oth minute. I wasn't sure what it was for and I don't think our players did either. It was only after reading Monday's papers that I discovered the linesman claimed that Carlo Monti has handled Jay Stein's cross. Paul McQuade rolled his penalty down the middle past Bryn Halliwell's flailing legs to put his team right back in it.



The goal affected us a bit but we never really looked like losing the lead and the game was put beyond doubt early in the second half. Unfortunately I missed the goal all thanks to Tomato sauce; I had just bought a pie and was about to turn around to watch the game again when I noticed a bottle of tomato sauce and while I put on the sauce Stevie Masterton whipped a corner to the near post where Weatherson had arrived to power a header into the roof of the net.



From then we were confortable and basically played out time to secure our place in the second round draw. The only other thing of note from the day was the despicable state of the Central Park toilets (pictured, directly below). I'm not usually critical of toilet facilities at Scottish football grounds - you expect to be in in moss ridden middens peeing against a brick wall and that doesn't bother but these 'faclities' took the biscuit. The floor was caked in bird shit, as was the urinal trough and the actual toilet bowl was full of tree branches, leaves and paper to such an extent it had filled the bowl. Sometimes I take my 4 year old son to the games and I'm just glad I didn't take him on Saturday as he would've been traumatised if he had to go in here. Sort it out Cowdenbeath.



Toilet facilities aside this was a decent result and performance but we'll have to step it up a few gears when we travel to Dundee next week.

Morton (4-3-3):

1. Halliwell - 6
2. McGuffie - 5 (16. MacGregor - 68 mins)
3. Monti - 6
4. McManus - 6
5. Greacen - 7
6. Masterton - 7
7. Finlayson - 6
8. MacFarlane - 7
9. Weatherson - 8 (14. Graham - 84 mins)
10. Jenkins - 6 (12. Wake - 72 mins)
11. McAlister - 6

Unused Subs:

15. Walker
20. Stewart

Booked: Wake

Halliwell
McGuffie Greacen McManus Monti
Masterton MacFarlane Jenkins
Finlayson Weatherson McAlister

Cowdenbeath: Hay, Baxter, Mbu (Broudge 83), Adamson, Linton, Stein, Robertson, McCabe, McBride (Fairbairn 66), Wardlaw, McQuade (Dempster 59).

Subs Not Used: Tomana, Bonner.

Booked: Baxter

My man of the match: Peter Weatherson

Sponsor's man of the match: Peter Weatherson


Matchday Programme (Click to enlarge)

Greenock Telegraph - match report

bbc - match report

The Scottish Sun - match report

The Daily Record - match report

The Sunday Mail - match report