Published: Wednesday, 23rd September, 2009 3:00pm

East Kilbride's Bankie robbery

East Kilbride 2 Clydebank 0

JACK IN THE BOX: John Jack in an aerial tussle (below)

DESPITE dominating possession, Clydebank slumped to their second defeat of the season.

Budgie McGhie's side had hoped to bounce back from their setback at home to Ashfield last week but when the wily Thistle striker Steven McLung slipped David Watt in for an early opener, it was always going to be tough.

Clydebank responded well despite the terrible Show Park surface and should have been back on level terms, and possibly even ahead, by the break.

Gary Lynn came close with a superb 30-yard drive, which home keeper Johnny Murdoch did well to tip over.

Stevie Dallas nodded down for Paul Allum to crack a spectacular volley goalwards, but again Murdoch was at his best and pulled off a fine stop.

Ryan Jordan had earlier been booked for diving after he broke into the Bankies box and went down under the close attention of Stefan Gonet.

It was the first of a clutch of bookings in an untidy first half.

The half-time interval came a bit too soon for the visitors, who had East Kilbride pinned back, desperately clinging on to their narrow lead.

After the break, the Bankies continued to press, but a number of good passages of play were wasted with a careless final ball or bad decision.

And their failure to turn territorial superiority into chances had the Bankies bench and travelling support equally frustrated.

In a bid to find a more incisive attacking edge, for the second week in succession,

McGhie switched to an adventurous 3-4-3 formation, introducing Andy Selkirk for

Smith.

The Clydebank manager then brought on Steven Blair and Mark Hailstones for John Jack and Charlie Hobbs as a last throw of the dice - but 10 minutes from time Thistle made sure of the points when they hit the visitors on the break.

Again McLung was the architect, feeding Paul Woods inside the box for a decent finish after he burst into the box, without a single Bankie tracking his run.

Clydebank now have a weekend off before turning their attention to their next league match away to Renfrew. McGhie resisted making extravagant claims for his side when they won their first two league games of the season, so it was no surprise that he didn't overreact to a couple of disappointing defeats when he spoke to Sportscene.

He said: "We are going to use the break to regroup in the hope that we find our form.

"If there is any consolation to be taken from the weekend it is the league results elsewhere show that it's going to be a really tight league.

"Even with back-to-back defeats, if we win our game in hand we are not that far off the leading pack."

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