A late equaliser and penalty misfortune saw Bonnyton u20s earn a draw but miss out on
at least a bonus point in the Player Data League Cup away at Auchinleck Talbot on Friday night.
Outside of the brief spell of Talbot pressure in the opening minutes, which featured the
home side hitting the post with a cross, it was Bonnyton who dominated the first
half and scored the only goal in that period.
After a period of comfortable possession at the back for the Ton, Blair Phillips upped the tempo
by sending a searching high ball towards striker Callum Fyfe; the frontman was looking for a
pass into his feet, but he made do.
The ball took an awkward bounce behind the Talbot defender and Fyfe took it in his stride,
bearing down the home goalkeeper and curling an accurate low finish just inside the far
post to give his side the lead.
It was a goal which had been coming, with Bonnyton soon getting to grips with their hosts’
set-piece threat and proving themselves to be a threat both on quick breaks, lead primarily
by Nathan Ferguson and goalscorer Fyfe, and by holding onto the ball in Talbot’s half.
Having the lead only bolstered the Ton threat, and the visitors went close one several other
occasions in the opening period, most notably with Arran Fairbairn having his effort
smothered at close range and Ferguson seeing his one-on-one chance turned away by the
keeper’s legs.
However, Bonnyton were made to rue these missed chances as Talbot came out firing in the
second half and enjoyed the better of the subsequent 45 minutes.
The warning signs began flashing as the host’s free-kick and corner threat began to grow
again, with Ton keeper Bradley Bain called into action to deny the Talbot captain’s header
from a wide set-piece.
Bain was at the heart of the action a few minutes later too, scampering out to clear a
dangerous through ball to make a good challenge on the ball.
Bonnyton’s brightest moment of the second half to that point involved a penalty shout, as Fairbairn
chased down a loose ball in the Talbot box and was taken down by a tackle, but the
referee again waved away the appeals.
However, the man in the middle eventually did point to the spot, with the drama coming
late in the day; he awarded a penalty for a handball against the Ton after a scramble in the box,
and the spot-kick was duly stuck away by McClymont.
Fyfe almost rewrote the script late on however with what would have been an early goal of the season contender. The striker ran onto a through ball, lifted it up over a Talbot defender’s head and struck it on the volley from the edge of the area but it narrowly bounced wide.
It seemed as though the late swing in the match took it out of the Bonnyton players, and in
the resulting penalty shootout they fell to a 4-3 defeat, meaning that Auchinleck Talbot took
two points from the opening fixture in the group.