Irvine Meadow secure Scottish Cup second round place with 'brilliant' win over Burntisland Shipyard
Irvine Meadow boss Ben Carson heaped praise on his side’s ‘brilliant’ performance as they booked their place in the second round of the Scottish Cup thanks to a 4-1 away win over Burntisland Shipyard.
A pair of David Anderson corner-kicks were turned home firstly by Jack McDowall on 24 minutes, then Lewis Kennedy 15 minutes later, had the Medda two goals to the good at the interval.
Michael Gibb pulled one back midway through the second half only for substitute Greg Cree to net twice as the visitors sealed a comfortable and well deserved first round victory.
It’s a third successive cup victory for the West of Scotland First Division side with the gaffer challenging them to take the confidence gained from recent results into the league.
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He said: “I thought we were really good today. It’s a cup tie so you just want to win first and foremost but I thought the first half in particular we were brilliant.
“I didn’t want to complicate things too much, I wanted us to come here and get the ball down the sides and into the box and we did plenty of that - albeit the two first half goals came from set plays.
“I said to the boys at half-time that we were pretty dominant and the only thing that was going to kill us was ourselves. We conceded a goal we should have dealt with much better, although I think it was a foul to us beforehand.
“To be fair to the boys, they reacted brilliantly and Cree’s scored a couple of minutes later and then we’ve been able to get another late on.”
He added: “We did a bit of homework on Burntisland and we knew it was going to be a tough game but now we just want to keep the momentum going.
“We’ve had a wee burst of results in cup games here and we need to take that into the league now. We’ve got Rutherglen next week which is going to be tough but we should be confident given our results the past few weeks.”
The Medda will be in tomorrow’s second round draw - the first time the club has reached that stage in over a decade - and Carson admits their win will give the whole club a boost.
He said: “You never know what could happen in the draw. Everyone loves a cup run and we’re desperate to go as far as we can in this competition. There’s a prestige with being involved at these stages and obvoiusly there financial benefits get better each round you progress which can be massive for a club like ourselves.
“The boys were outstanding and deserve to be in the hat for the next round.”