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The Black Bull of Moffat sponsored Solway Sharks
battled to the bitter end in Kirkcaldy on Saturday night before
just losing out five - four to the defending champions, the Fife
Flyers. In front of eight hundred faithful Flyers fans and the
fifty or so faithful Sharks fans who made the trip to the east
coast, the Flyers repelled the Sharks pressure to keep their
perfect record in the Northern League.
Although
the Sharks team were missing Terry Robertson (broken ankle),
Corrie Telfer (knee injury) and Bob Chalmers (work commitments)
the Sharks were coming off a brave victory in Edinburgh the week
before and were feeling confident of another 'upset'. When the
puck dropped the pace of the week before was continued and the
crowd could sense that they were in for an exciting evening. The
referee, however, had his own idea on what would ensue and in
doing that he called twenty-nine minor penalties throughout the
sixty minute game. The calls came thick and fast and in bundles
that disrupted a free passing, fast skating spectacle. Early on
several players at a time were sent to the penalty box leaving
both sides with five on three man advantages.
 It was the Sharks who managed to take the lead on
a powerplay halfway through the first period when Shaun Kippin
(pictured left) beat the home netminder, Blair Daly, with a
quick, off-balanced shot, with Chris Gracie picking up the
assist. The Flyers replied four minutes later through Andy
Samuel and the game was set up to be a belter. The play ebbed
back and forth as both teams tried to take the advantage as the
stream of players to and from the 'sin bin' continued. In what
was to be a rare even strength goal, Bari McKenzie popped up to
finish off a nice move assisted by Cammy Currie and Kevin
Conway. This was enough to send the Sharks into the first
intermission with a narrow lead in what the statistics show to
be an even match with both sides recording twelve shots on goal
to this point.
The second period started with play just as quick
as it had been when the first session ended. The Sharks applied
the early pressure and were rewarded after five minutes when
Sharks man-of-the-match, Shaun Kippin, netted his second goal of
the night. This time he was assisted by line-mates Corrie Telfer
and Mark Gallagher. The goal was a photocopy of his first and
the Sharks found themselves in unseen territory, two goal up
against the reigning champions, the unbeaten Fife Flyers. The
Flyers, also not used to the situation. responded as you would
expect champions to do. They upped their game, scored two good
goals and the period finished even at three apiece.
The third period was end-to-end stuff and for
close to fifteen minutes it looked like neither team would break
the deadlock. However. it was to be the penalties that the
Sharks gave away at crucial times that were to come back to
haunt them. With Solway down a man first Todd Dutiaume scored to
put the flyers ahead and then within fifty-seven seconds, the
Sharks again a man short, Gunn pounced on a loose puck to put
the Flyers ahead by two. Solway though did not put their tails
between their legs and wait for the end. In a gutsy display they
went on the offence seeking a just reward from their road trip.
Cammy Currie found himself all alone in front of the net and
latched onto the rebound from a Wayne Slater shot to pull the
Sharks to within one with Kevin Conway also picking up an assist
on the play.
Solway continued to press and for the rest of the
game kept the puck in the Flyers territory and could perhaps
consider themselves unlucky not to tie the game on the night.
The Flyers did what champions do. They played well, took
advantage of any mistakes, scored when it counts and
shut-up-shop when they needed to - a lesson to us all. The
Sharks out-shot the flyers by fourteen to twelve in the final
period but the final score-line read Flyers five, Sharks four.
After the game Sharks coach, Kevin Doherty, said:
"It is important that we keep our feet on the ground and work
hard now that we are not that far off the top teams. Our success
depends on the continued effort we put in for the next eighteen
months. The difficult thing to do now is to keep playing
consistently good for this time frame but I really believe in
this side and the more we play the better we can get.
The views and statistics in
this report are individual and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the Solway Sharks.
Report courtesy of the Dumfries &
Galloway Standard |
