Boss Gus slams ‘shocking’ pitch

Jan 19 2009 Paisley Daily Express

Gus macpherson

ANGRY Buddies boss Gus MacPherson has hit out at Hibs in the wake of Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Easter Road and claimed the Edinburgh club’s pitch isn’t fit to host SPL games.

MacPherson labelled the condition of the playing surface at Easter Road “shocking” after watching his side lose their first league match in five games.

Goals from Rob Jones and a second-half strike from Derek Riordan sealed the win for Mixu Paatelainen’s side but MacPherson reckoned his team would have made a better game of it had the pitch been in decent nick.

Much of the playing surface resembled a ploughed field in parts and overall, the divots and general state of the pitch left much to be desired.

MacPherson said:”We deserved something from the game but that’s the SPL for you.

“We put so much into it and played some decent stuff on what I would only consider as a shocking pitch.

“In this day and age that’s not the surface top-level football should be played on but I think we coped with it, although you could see the problems that both teams had with it.

“We were encouraging the players to pass the ball and we certainly tried to do that but in the final third, especially in the first half, we couldn’t get our shots away quickly enough.

“But the players have the perfect excuse on a pitch like that.”

When asked if he thought the pitch at Easter Road was worse than the one at Brechin City’s Glebe Park, where Saints played last Tuesday night in the Scottish Cup, MacPherson added: “I would not even compare Brechin’s pitch to that one.”

Jones scored the opener after 14 minutes but a brave second-half fightback from Saints came to nothing after Riordan’s fine strike with time running out.

But MacPherson reckoned the players cannot be criticised for the way they – under the circumstances.

He said: “We were throwing everything at them and at that stage we had six mainly attack-minded players on and were playing with just two centre backs and asking them to defend.

“But we did create chances, and although Szamotulski was beaten on a couple of occasions, we had a couple of chances cleared off the line.

“You can’t do much more other than out the ball in the back of the net but if there was a way to get beaten, that was it, especially in the second half, so we can’t criticise the players.

“That was a good Hibs team and we played them away from home but we’ve got to be pleased with the manner in which we played the game”

l Turn to page 19 for full match report.