Yoker out of Junior Cup

Published 11 Nov 2009 15:00

YOKER were knocked out of the Emirates Junior Cup after Kelty Hearts ran out winners at Central Park on Saturday, writes Iain Smith.

A brave performance at Holm Park the week before forced the tie to a replay, but the Whe-ho were unable to conjure a repeat of last week's heroics.

A brace from Kelty forward Scott Lawrie and a third from John Rushford decided the tie as Yoker struggled to threaten the Hearts without first choice strikers James McLernon and James Strain.

Yoker will be clearly disappointed with an early cup exit and assistant manager John McAuley insists the result failed to highlight his side's battling performance.

He said: "The scoreline was a wee bit hard on some of our players because the effort and commitment they showed was different class.

"Kelty were the better team on the day and probably deserved the win over the two legs but we were missing two of our main goal scorers and had to rely on two young strikers.

"We had Martin Gallacher on the bench but we lost him as well. He had to go off again with a knee injury, so there was a bit of bad luck there as well."

Yoker can still take solace in their continued participation in the West of Scotland cup after humbling First Division Maybole earlier last month.

And they can also be confident of a productive league campaign as they sit three points shy of league leaders Shettleston - with a game in hand.

McAuley added: "We're all now looking forward to the Greenock game, it should be a good test for us.

"We've been absolutely delighted with the guys' recent performances and it says a lot about them that we can go a month without playing a league game and still be sitting second. Also, Shettleston don't play this weekend so we know that if we win then we go back to the top."

Kick off at Ravenscraig is at 2pm.

Tweet

This article appeared in Clydebank Post 11 Nov 09

Follow @clydebankpost

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.