Carnoustie went down to their first defeat of the season at Thomson Park on Wednesday night, losing 2-0 to Lochee United.
With Greg Warwick unavailable changes had to be made once again with Kieran Conway coming into the back three and Kieran McWalter returning in place of Gordon Macdonald.
As is usual between the two sides, the game began at 100mph with neither side in the ascendency and then it erupted on 12 minutes when Danny Cavanagh was guilty of a bad challenge on Ryan Suttie that somewhat surprisingly only resulted in a yellow card for the Lochee man. Five minutes later Kieran McWalter pulled up with a recurrence of a hamstring injury and was replaced by Dale Reid. The game continued in a scrappy manner with the match official making decisions that didn’t always meet with the support of the crowd before the sides went in at the break level at 0-0.
Lochee took the lead on 53 minutes when Bailey Steel appeared to be harshly penalised for a clean challenge and Cavanagh struck the free kick beyond Clarkson from 22 yards. Carnoustie battled to try and get back in the game and had enough chances to do so but failed to find the net. With five minutes remaining Louis Joyce appeared to be tripped by a defender and then by the goalkeeper but the referee and assistant turned a blind eye and played on. With Carnoustie chasing the game, Lochee doubled their advantage on 88 minutes when a Sutherland header came back off the bar and was nodded home by Josh McConville to make sure of the points.
The second goal summed up Carnoustie’s night as throughout the game, in similar positions, The Gowfers didn’t get the rub of the green with deflections or rebounds and as a result paid the price, losing their first game of the season.
We move on to another tough game this weekend as we travel to North End Park to face Dundee North End, leaders of the Midlands League
