Saltcoats Vics 6 Ardeer Thistle 0

Checklist:

Ardeer playing well for long spells of the match but losing heavily.

Slack defending at times.

Incompetent refereeing including giving dodgy penalties to the opposition.

Ardeer player being sent off.

All of these "usual suspects" were present as Saltcoats defeated Ardeer by a six goal margin. Ardeer had a couple of decent chances early on. Toni Paton tested the Saltcoats goalkeeper (who had a really good game) with a stinging shot and Darren Quinn headed wide from the back post after getting on the end of a Tom Donovan cross. Saltcoats had their own chances and took the lead on 22 minutes when Joe Murphy was able to save one effort from a Saltcoats striker but was powerless to prevent the rebound from being converted. Murphy made a couple of good saves before Saltcoats were awarded a dubious penalty on 37 minutes. Referee Stuart MacMillan obviously saw something no-one else did and penalised Jay Docherty for holding on to a Saltcoats players shorts. The penalty was then dispatched to make it 2-0 at half time.

Joe Murphy made a good save from a free-kick early in the second half but some slack defending allowed Saltcoats to score two goals in quick succession on 57 and 59 minutes. Those goals pretty much sealed victory for the home team but Ardeer did keep trying to score. Lee Munro, whose dribbling caused some problems for Saltcoats throughout the game, beat a couple of Saltcoats players before forcing a very good save from the keeper. However, Saltcoats made it 5-0 on 73 minutes from another contentious penalty. There was definitely a foul on the Saltcoats player involved but he looked offside when the ball was played. Toni Paton then hit the top of the bar from long range for Ardeer before Saltcoats managed to spurn a great chance to score, hitting the post when they had an open goal.

Saltcoats scored their sixth on 88 minutes but it was fumbled into the goal by Murphy. Chris Stevenston was then sent off in the last minute after making a late challenge on former Ardeer player Brett McKenzie. His first yellow was for the challenge and I can only assume the second one immediately afterwards was for dissent.