Newburgh welcomed Peebles Rovers to East Shore Park on an afternoon that took a pleasant break from the recent poor weather with bright sunshine presenting a perfect day for football and three points.
Sadly, we can’t get everything we wanted and a lacklustre performance gifted the points to the visitors.
Injuries in the squad didn’t help with a number of players missing, but the home side never really got going. In fairness, it was a game with little goal mouth activity from both sides.
The opening goal of the game came in the 17th minute when Kivlichan was allowed to flick a ball through the centre of Burgh’s defence to Maclean to slot a low effort past Joe Russell.
The second goal came a few minutes later with a touch of fortune with Bardi’s long range strike deflecting off the stretching Lewis Stevenson’s leg to loop enough beyond Russell’s dive for 2-0.
The game went into a bit of a lull with both sides looking unlikely to score or trouble the opposing keepers until Mitchell Sharp’s turn and shot over the bar in the 42nd minute, whilst Bardi forced Russell into a comfortable save on the stroke of half time.
Manager Rikki McNeill rang the changes at half time bringing on Callum Anderson, Ruairidh McPhate and Kellar Harris in an attempt to shake things up. But sadly it did not have too much of a desired effect with Kyle Tracey going closest heading a corner just wide of the far post in the 51st minute.
In the 55th minute Peebles went 3-0 up with a break down their left when Maclean was able to run from distance into the box and his shot from 8 yards out took another killer deflection to loop over the dive of Russell and into the net.
Sharp went close on 61 minutes with a good shot on the volley saved well by the visiting keeper Coats, whilst a few minutes later Burgh were given a lifeline and a possible entry back into the game when Grieve was brought down in the box by Dickson. Kellar Harris made no mistake from the spot sending the keeper the wrong way and it was game on.
Burgh then had their best spell on the game and there looked like glimpses that the home side could possibly get themselves back into the game. Ruairidh McPhate curled a shot just wide of the far post on 72 minutes after the defender gave the ball away on the corner of the box.
Skipper Andrew Cameron went close on 75 minutes with a diving header from a corner that went just over the crossbar.
Any chance of a comeback was killed in the 80th minute by a moment of suicide in the Burgh defence as Harris Mitchell in the left back area of the pitch played the ball to McPhate who played it back into the area to Russell. Both Russell and Anderson played short passes between each other instead of clearing the danger and Peebles saw their opportunity to press with McGill closing down and dispossessing Russell inside the six-yard box to roll the ball into an empty net.
That killed any thoughts of a comeback and the game petered out to a 4-1 defeat in a match of few attacking action from either side aside from the goals.
