Match Report - By Match Secretary

BRECHIN City bowed out of the Scottish Cup with a 3-1 defeat to St. Mirren, but had lady luck smiled on the Glebe Park side they could quite easily have been celebrating being in the next round of the competition.

The big turning point of the game was the decision of the linesman to rule out a John Baird strike which would have brought the scores level at 2-2 with City in the ascendancy.

Instead, Saints went right up the other end with a long ball, and a horrific mix up between McCluskey and John Ward led to Jim Hamilton walking the ball into the net.

Brechin's new manager, Jim Duffy, was not up for apportioning blame after the match though, instead praising his side's performance.

"(Chris] is only a young goalkeeper, he's only 19, and the biggest part of goalkeeping for me is decision making," Jim commented.

"Decision making comes through experience, when to come, when to stay. Those things come through experience and I think that's the hardest part, that's the thing you've got to learn.

"In general he had a couple of magnificent saves and kicked the ball well so I'm not going to be too critical of Chris, there were other elements, St. Mirren did the job and I wish them all the best in the next round.

"I don't feel hard done by, I feel frustrated because I thought in general we played pretty well. Obviously we made some terrible mistakes and then there's every likelihood you're going to be punished.

"There were an awful lot of positive things, for me as a manager taking the team for the first time, I was really pleased with some of the performances and the spirit from everybody was outstanding.

"Those little decisions sometimes come your way, but I can't say whether he was off or on. He was running at pace from deep but, the linesman gave the call. I spoke to the linesman after and he said 'listen, I was 100%', and if he's 100% then I'll accept that."

Brechin had the better of the opening 25 minutes, but it was St. Mirren who opened the scoring when Ward slid in and clipped Andy Dorman in the box. Jim Hamilton duly stepped up and sent McCluskey the wrong way.

An early goal in the second half was what City needed, and it was what they got less than a minute after the restart, with one of the best Glebe Park will see this season.

Nice build up play involving Byers and Baird led to the ball being played wide to Willie Dyer, whose cross found Twigg at the back post. The striker then nodded the ball down to Neil Janczyk, and the midfielder fired a fantastic shot into the top corner from 16 yards.

Brechin continued to dominate the match, but it was the Buddies who again took the lead when McCluskey came for a long ball into the box from Miranda, but was caught in no man's land, leaving Wyness to roll the ball into the empty net.

Baird threatened again with a great run and shot which was magnificently blocked by a sliding John Potter, before the City striker "scored", latching onto a Twigg through ball and calmly placing it past Howard.

The linesman flagged though, and from the resultant free kick the Paisley men broke forward to break Brechin's hearts, with Hamilton sealing his brace.