The Burgh travelled for their final away game of the season to picturesque Peebles for a Friday evening game in an incident-filled and spicy match.
The visitors were coming on the back off a fine 2-1 victory at Stirling University two weeks ago, looking forward to follow up with another good result. The home side, though, were quickly in the ascendency with McGill forcing Mark Robertson into a save. From the resultant corner, Kinross rose the highest to head home to give Peebles the lead.
Burgh didn’t have to wait long, though, when Michael Perrie was felled just inside the home penalty area and the referee pointed to the spot. Perrie picked himself up to send the keeper the wrong way to equalise.
Then the goal of the game came in the 24th minute with Perrie laying off the ball to Rory Marshall who took the ball out towards the left wing before sending over a pin-point return cross to be met on the volley by Perrie who rocketed his chance into the corner of the net for 2-1.
The number 9 completed his 19-minute hat-trick in the 34th minute when Matthew Harper was put through one-on-one with the Peebles keeper. Harper’s effort was blocked by Hanratty but the ball ran loose to the onrushing Perrie who fired the loose ball home.
Whilst it was great to see Newburgh 3-1 at the break, it wasn’t necessarily as convincing at it seemed and you always felt that the game was far from dead and buried. That proved to be the case within a few minutes of the second half beginning when a defensive mix up lead to a desperate tackle resulting in the game’s second penalty of the game. Lamb made no mistake from the spot to pull the scores back to 3-2. A further chance went begging for Peebles when Kivlichan spurned a glorious chance heading across the face of goal when he should have scored.
Peebles were reduced to 10 men in the 63rd minute when scorer Lamb received his marching orders for a second yellow card. But the numerical disadvantage didn’t hinder the home side as they pulled level in the 73rd minute when Kivlichan beat Robertson to the ball and loop the ball over the keeper and into the net.
The game was on a knife-edge and Marshall went close when his effort came crashing off the crossbar after a lay off by Perrie.
The home side were then reduced to 9 men in the 88th minute when David Byrne appeared to come off second best in a challenge with Kinross who picked up his second yellow card and he reluctantly left the field after making his feelings known to the official in too strong terms.
In the closing moments Newburgh could have grabbed the winner when a goal mouth scramble saw the ball ricochet around the Peeble’s six-yard box and also coming off the post and back out before being hacked clear.
It was a disappointing result for the Burgh after coming from a goal behind to lead 3-1 at the break, with Michael Perrie looking on fire netting his first Newburgh hat-trick which will hopefully do his confidence the world of good. But ultimately, we weren’t good enough to put the game to bed and let the hosts back into the game. Maybe that’s a sign of the progress that is being made that we are disappointed at such a result, despite coming from behind, scoring 3 times in a game and getting a point?
