Elgin City 0 Forfar Athletic 0

Forfar Athletic traveled north on Tuesday night to play Elgin in the second round of the SPFL Trust Trophy only 3 days after playing them in the League. That game finished 0-0 but the Athies were the only team who looked most likely to win on Saturday past.

The Loons started the best of the two teams at Borough Briggs and looked most likely to score early on but Watson, Paterson, and Nditi all missed their chances. Midway through the first half, Watson forced a good save from the Elgin keeper after being played in by Paterson. Paterson also had a chance himself but blasted it over the bar following a Niditi knockdown.

The visitors were becoming frustrated at chances going begging and were dealt a blow when Tomas Brindley had to be replaced due to injury on 37 minutes with Matty Allan coming on to replace him.

Although the Loons dominated play in the first half they couldn’t find the back of the net whether through blocked shots from desperate defending, Elgin keeper Hoban saving or simply shots going awry.

Halftime 0-0

The Loons continued the assault on the Elgin goal right from the restart and Craig Thomson thought he’d broken the deadlock on 52 minutes but the assistant referee flagged for offside.

Elgin who had started to play a bit were clearly coming into the game more and more however Forfar had the perfect opportunity to take the sting out of their tail after the referee pointed to the spot when Roberto Nditi was fouled n the box. Kieran Inglis stepped up to take it but the Elgin stopper guessed right and tipped Inglis effort around the post.

The Loons continued to throw everything at Elgin but couldn’t break them down. Craig Thomson had two efforts close together which where both saved and you could sense this game was destined to be 0-0 with penalties looming.

In the 90-minute game which at times was end-to-end action the stats showed Forfar had 7 shots on target and Elgin had none but the fate of the tie would be decided by penalties.

Elgin were up first and scored before Captain Andy Munro leveled it. Again Elgin scored the next penalty but again Mark Whatley this time kept it level.

Marc McCallum who had very little to do in the match then pulled off a wonderful save to give the loons a chance to go ahead in the shoot out but Stuart Morrison blasted his effort over the bar.

Elgin scored their 4th penalty to make it 3-2 however Darren Whyte calmly slotted his home to level it again. Down to the 5th penalty and Elgin scored theirs with Craig Thomson having to score to take it to 6th man. Unfortunately for the small travelling support who had made trip up north the Keeper saved it to send Elgin through to the next round.

Full-time 0-0
Elgin won 4-3 on penalties.

Loons manager Ray McKinnon commented that’s a tough result to take as we created a lot of chances in a game we dominated for the majority of. Marc McCallum didn’t have a safe to make but we need to work on our play on the final third. I was delighted players returning from injury came through the game getting crucial game time which will help for returning to league action on Saturday.