Tale of two halves fails to deliver happy ending for Hawick Royal Albert

Greg Ford put the hosts in front at Albert Park 20 minutes into their top-versus-bottom face-off and that’s how the scoreline stayed until just short of the hour mark.

Cameron Leslie got the men from Midlothian back on level terms with 58 minutes played and two further goals followed within the next ten minutes. Darren Leslie netted past home goalkeeper Rory MacIntyre on 65 minutes and Kyle Brockie on 67, with Jack Morgan scoring a fourth on 82 and Brockie getting his second just ahead of the final whistle.

That result keeps Thistle six points clear at the top of the table, on 28 points from 10 games, with Albert still bottom, on two points from seven matches, ahead of a visit from second-placed Whitburn on Wednesday night.

Albert manager Kenny Aitchison was heartened by his side’s display, pinning the blame for their defeat on himself for taking a gamble on a new keeper, his eighth of the season so far, not ready, with hindsight, to be thrown into the fray.

“It was a tale of two halves, as they say,” he said.

“We went in at half-time 1-0 up, having performed really, really well and scored a terrific goal through Greg Ford. He played a nice one-two with Hon-to To, received a through ball and took it round the keeper.

“We had a good first half. We limited Dalkeith to very few chances. They hit the post at one point from range, and apart from that, they never looked like scoring. You could tell their bench were panicking a little bit and I thought we had the upper hand at that point.

“There’s a very simple reason we lost the game. We played a goalkeeper who hadn’t played much in the last few months and I think you could probably say that three of the goals they scored he really should have done better with.

“The first goal was a real confidence-breaker for our team. We were very composed out of possession until then, but their goals changed the mentality of the game and gave Dalkeith a bit of confidence.

“At the end of the day, it’s my fault for playing a keeper who wasn’t quite ready, so I certainly take responsibility for those errors.

“He’s a young lad, so errors are always going to happen.

“I feel for the goalkeeper. He’s a smashing lad and I do think he’s got a lot of potential, so perhaps it’s on me for throwing him in too early and not giving him enough preparation to get his match fitness back.

“It was a 5-1 scoreline in the end but that certainly wasn’t reflective of how the game went or our performance.

“That gives us a little bit of confidence going forward.”

This coming Saturday brings with it a trip to Fife for Albert to take on Newburgh Juniors, kick-off being at 2.30pm, and Aitchison is hoping to see his side head back south with their first win of the season under their belts.

“For us, our preparation doesn’t change ahead of games,” he said.

“I think if we’re able to match our performance against Dalkeith, especially in the first half, and cut out the errors we made, there’s every chance we can get something from our next game.

“The guys are still confident in themselves, and if you look at the league table, we’ve got four or five games on most of the teams around us to catch up on.

“What I’ve seen from the team in a lot of games recently is that we’ve been competitive. I can tell if a team haven’t got any potential and aren’t growing, and we’re far from that.

“We’ve still got a very, very young squad but we are getting better every week.

“Our recent scores and the league table don’t paint the full picture. It’s still very early days.”