4th placed Westside travelled to face 3rd place Dynamo Hibs with the winning team guaranteed to go top of the Premier Division.
Dynamo started the game like a steam train and soon took an early lead.Sean McCormack fed the ball wide to Shaun Davidson,Davidson clipped the ball into the box and Lee Niven tried to tap home but missed the ball.This seemed to distract the keeper and the ball trickled past him into the net.The ref confirmed that if Niven had touched the ball he would have disallowed it for offside.A 2nd goal followed 1 minute later.A long ball was controlled well by Lee Niven, he passed the ball onto Martyn Murray and with the keeper advancing he beautifully lobbed him from the edge of the box.Westside have no answer to Dynamo's play and Sean McCormack made it 3-0 in the 19th minute.After a nice move down the right Martyn Murray crossed into the box,Lee Niven missed it but McCormack cooly side-footed home from the penalty spot,the ball going in via the post.Dynamo refused to slow down and went 4-0 up after 25 minutes with a carbon copy of the 2nd goal.Again Lee Niven played in Murray and he lobbed the keeper with expert ease.Murray incredibly passed up a chance for his hat-trick minutes later when he blazed over from 6 yards.Dynamo continued to dominate possession and keeper Cossetini decided to dazzle us with his skills.Firstly he punched an excellent chance over the bar before performing an amazing Cruyff turn to fool the opposition striker.
Half-time Dynamo 4-0.
Westside changed to a 4-3-3 at the break but conceded a 5th seconds after the restart.Martyn Murray danced his way up the right wing before crossing for Sean McCormack to head back across the keeper and into the corner of the goal.This seemed to totally demoralise Westside and Murray completed his hat-tick in the 49th minute.McCormack released him down the right channel and Murray continued on with the ball before slotting it home at the keeper's near post.This signalled some changes with McCormack and Davidson both withdrawn for the Mayfield Messi(Leon Reynolds) and Steven Geary.The changes didn't slow Dynamo down and they went 7-0 up with a well deserved Lee Niven strike.The man of the moment Martyn Murray played Niven through and he slotted home past the keeper from 15 yards.More changes were made with Eamonn Reynolds replacing Robbie Graham and Ian Short replacing the outstanding Martyn Murray.Captain Graham being withdrawn after a number of crunching tackles as he tries to replace his idol,David Hunter.The excellent Stewart Kean was replaced by Craig Dilworth.
Sub Ian Short made it 8-0 with an excellent goal.Fellow sub Geary crossed into the box and Short controlled and turned in one movement before firing home from 15 yards.More chances continued to be created with Lee Niven firing wide on a couple of occassions.Dav McAndrew decided to try and throw away the clean sheet but luckily only hit the post before Eamonn Reynolds summed up the day for Dynamo by sprinting back and throwing himself in the way to block the rebound and ensure that Dynamo won 8-0.
An outstanding way for Dynamo to take top spot.
One piece of sad news was Lee Niven broke his toe early in the game and will be out for 8-10 weeks.A shame as Niven had an excellent game and had earned a start for next week.
