July 15th 2024
DISAPPOINTED manager Ronnie Sharp felt his side were hard done by with the award of the penalty kick that ultimately cost his team today's derby match at Clachnacuddin but conceded his team did not do enough in an attacking sense over the course of the match. The County boss saw Michael Finnis blast home from 12 yards midway through the first half and it was all that separated the sides as the hosts edged a tight derby. Sharp said: "Clach looked more like scoring than we did but other than that, I did not think there was much between the teams, although we were poor in the last third of the park. We did not pick the right pass at the right time and we did not look like scoring to be honest. It would probably have taken something special for us to score whereas Clach had a few chances." "The penalty changed the game and I did not think it was a foul. I thought Jordan Macrae was in front of their player (Martin Callum), who tried to get around Jordan but that is the way it goes with decisions." County put in a battling performance in an all-action match against Formartine on Wednesday evening and that contributed to a flat opening spell at Grant Street this afternoon, according to Sharp. "The boys said their legs were very heavy in the warm up," Sharp stated. "You have to remember, a lot of them are young boys, so two games of this intensity in a week will take its toll on them. I thought we looked jaded in the first half but the young boys are coming along with every game. We are picking up a couple of injuries and have a lot of tiredness in the legs too. We do not have the experience to come off the bench but hopefully we are going in the right direction because we have not been outclassed at all today and we have been in every game so far this season, bar the one against Buckie." Skipper Wayne Mackintosh hobbled off 10 minutes after half time in what is a real concern to Sharp going into next weekend's home clash with Strathspey Thistle. The manager said: "Wayne has an Achilles problem and we will know more about it this week but it does not look good. He has been playing really well and is excelling as captain of the side. We will have to wait and see what the news is on that but we will miss his drive, plus he is probably the most experienced player we have." Sharp's thin squad was already stretched through a trio of absences for today's match. "We missed Callum Maclean in the middle of the park," he said. "And two of the players who might have taken his place were also away. We will just keep battling away though and we are going to give the young boys the game time they need. This is a learning year for them because two of the boys who played today are only 17 and another one was 18. There are good signs there and we will just have to pick ourselves up." Jack Maclean was taken off by Sharp 10 minutes before the interval despite appearing fit to continue. "It was just tactical," the boss revealed. "We wanted to get an extra striker on and Jack was looking a bit tired. We put a more experienced boy at right back in Stevie Mackenzie and dropped Wayne in to allow us to put another striker in because we were not causing them any problems." Graeme Macleod
