Edinburgh City pleased to take point from Elgin despite squandering lead

Edinburgh City boss James McDonaugh was pleased to come down the road from Elgin with a point – despite seeing his side relinquish a 2-0 half-time lead.

Craig Thomson was on target for Edinburgh City. Pic: TSPL

The Citizens found themselves two goals to the good at the interval courtesy of Craig Thomson’s 31st-minute penalty and a Scott Shepherd close-range finish.

However, the hosts turned the game on its head in the second 45, hitting back with a Shane Sutherland brace and Kane Hester effort before another late Thomson penalty salvaged a point at Borough Briggs.

McDonaugh was forced into an early change as goalkeeper Calum Antell took ill and had to be replaced by 17-year-old Dean Beveridge.

The Capital side stay second, three points adrift of leaders Cove Rangers ahead of this weekend’s international break.

“We need to work on a number of things for the next game but Elgin were pretty good going forward too,” McDonaugh explained. “It ended up being a good point after finding ourselves 3-2 down so before the match I would have taken it.

“We couldn’t get a grip of things in defence or midfield, but we showed really good character to take a point in the end. It’s a tough place to go, the pitch was very heavy with all the rain.

“It wasn’t ideal with Calum coming off, but Dean made a good save at 3-3 so he should be proud of his debut. I think that’s the 12th teenager I have handed their debut too. It shows that if they are good enough then they’re old enough and that’s what the club is all about.

“The break is maybe coming at a good time with some of the injuries we have. We won’t have any time off, we’ll keep training and working hard to get better at the things we need to improve on.

“We’ve had a lot of 
challenges this early on in 
the season with the 
goalkeeping position, Craig suspended and other injuries throughout the team. We want to be top of the league but we’re second with ten points so it’s not too bad a start given we lost the opening game at Cove 5-0.”

Elgin City: McHale (Dunn 6), Wilson (Cooper 63), Bronsky, McDonald, Spark, Cameron, MacEwan (Aitken 54), Dingwall, Omar, Hester, Sutherland. Subs not used: Scott, McGowan, Willis, Sopel.

Edinburgh City: Antell (Beveridge 7), Thomson, Balatoni, L Henderson, McIntyre, Crane, Watson (Smith 64), Brown, Laird (Court 79), Harris, Shepherd. Subs not used: Sinclair, Kane, Stewart, Dunn.