Accies came from behind to grab a precious point on a chilly night at East End Park on Tuesday. Accies fell behind to a Stephen Glass penalty early on, but battled back well and Richard Offiong netted for the 19th time this season to earn his team a well deserved point.
With Dundee defeating Livingston, Accies' lead has been trimmed back to just three points with the two teams meeting at NDP on Saturday.
Dunfermline 1 Hamilton Accies 1
Irn Bru League Division 1
East End Park, Dunfermline
Tuesday 11 March 2008
There are two ways of looking at this game. Either it was two points lost against a mid table team that Accies should have been able to beat, or it was a valuable point gained at a treacherous away ground. Whatever your opinion, the fact is that Accies now sit three points ahead of Dundee with the Dark Blues having a game in hand over Accies.
Billy Reid made three changes for the game. Two of them were expected, with James McArthur and Alex Neil returning from suspension. There was a major surprise with the inclusion of Xavier Barrau, who had not featured in the team since that fateful night at Glebe Park. Tony Stevenson and Mark Gilhaney moved to the bench, while Tom Parratt was out injured.
On a very cold windy night at East End Park, it was the home side that took the early lead under controversial circumstances. Xavier barrau was penalised for a handball offence out on the touchline when he prevented the ball from striking him on the face. The resulting cross was headed powerfully goalwards by Scott Thomson but Tomas Cerny made a brilliant save. Unfortunately for Accies, Cerny was then penalised for fouling Stephen Simmons and referee Calum Murray gave a penalty kick. Stephen Glass fired the ball into the roof of the net to give his side the lead.
Accies struggled a bit after this and there were just too many mishit passes to give them any chance of threatening the Pars goal. In fact, one very poor pass by Alex Neil went straight to a Mark Burchill in the centre circle. He ran through on the left but Cerny did well to save. the ball broke out to Stevie Crawford but he was over stretched and the ball went over the top of the empty goal.
Billy Reid is never slow to change the team if he can see that things aren't going well. On this occasion, he decided that Xavier Barrau wasn't having a good night and replaced him with Mark Gilhaney. Things improved for Accies almost immediately and they took the game to the home side. They came mighty close to equalising when David Elebert saw his close range header tipped onto the bar by Pars 'keeper Paul Gallacher. Dunfermline nearly went two up when a blistering shot from defender Calum Woods scraped the post.
Accies were not to be denied, however, and Richard Offiong equalised after 39 minutes with his 19th goal of the season. He showed some great close control inside the area before firing past Gallacher. Accies remained on the ascendancy for the rest of the first half but despite their efforts they were unable to get that all important second goal.
There was a real snow storm at half time but it subsided for the resumption of the game. The second half was fairly dour in comparison with the first with Accies finding it hard to create any chances worthy of the name. The home side had a sustained spell of pressure towards the end as Accies tired, but there were to be no further goals.
Billy Reid brought on Tony Stevenson and Andrew Waterworth in the closing stages and both did reasonably well in a low key Accies performance. Best in the yellow shirts were Richard Offiong, Alex Neil and David Graham, with Mark Gilhaney also staking a solid claim for a starting position against Dundee.
Dunfermline: Gallacher, Woods, Wilson, Simmons, Scott Thomson (Shields 46), Morrison, Phinn (Harper 75), Glass, Burchill, Crawford (McIntyre 82), Burke. Subs Not Used: Murdoch, Willis.
Booked: Glass, Simmons, Morrison.
Goals: Glass 10 (pen).
Hamilton: Cerny, Mensing, Easton, McCarthy (Stevenson 75), Elebert, McLaughlin, Graham, McArthur, Offiong (Waterworth 80), Neil, Barrau (Gilhaney 35). Subs Not Used: Halliwell, Gibson.
Goals: Offiong 39.
Att: 2,444
Ref: C Murray
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