Cowdenbeath 1, Queen’s Park 0.

Ladbrokes League 2

Attendance-448

COWDEN got back on the winning trail in a really tousy match with Queen’s Park.

The sending off of David Cox before the hour mark, at Central Park on Saturday, had Cowdenbeath really struggling against the lively Spiders.

The game became a very bad tempered affair after a good first hour of quality football and both teams started to lose their discipline with bookings galore being taken by referee Peter Stuart.

Niggles turned into square goes as the teams simply totally lost their discipline and it was no surprise that both sides ended with ten.

Cowden had been playing well enough, without suspended Kyle Miller, and Archie Thomas left out, which saw Robbie Buchanan and Chris Hamilton moving forward into midfield.

They worked well in that area and Buchanan got Cowden’s goal.

But after Cox’s 'red' things got a bid more difficult for them, but to be honest the defence got better and better and without doubt the home side were worthy of all three points.

Queen’s launched high balls into the Cowden box time and time again in the last half hour but Craig Barr, Jamie Todd, Jamie Pyper and Harvey Swann were up to what was needed to shut out the Spiders and goalkeeper Kevin Dabrowski’s after match celebrations showed what the result meant to him!

Queen’s had the ball in the net after four minutes when Salim Kouider-Aissa forced the ball home but he was a couple of yards off-side.

Two minutes later, at the other end, Kris Renton’s header was held on the line by the visitors’ Trialist ‘keeper.

A ball from Buchanan went to Renton but as he tried to gather he was nudged in the back by Creag Little and the ball ran out of the danger area.

Cowden grabbed the lead in 20 minutes when Renton’s 25 yard drive was blocked by the ‘keeper and BUCHANAN, following up, fired the ball in to the net from eight yards out.

Eight minutes later Queen’s were unlucky when David Galt’s 16 yarder hit the underside of the Cowden bar and was bundled clear before Joffrey Lidouren’s follow-up shot was blocked at the expense of corner then Galt saw his 12 yarder go inches wide.

Queen’s finished the half strongly and repeatedly fired the ball into the Cowdenbeath box and it took some good defending to keep the lead alive.

Queen’s made a double substitution at the break, with Ryan Finnie and Thomas Block replacing Willie Mortimer and Lidouren, and they pushed forward.

Cowden received a blow in 55 minutes when Cox was sent off after the clash with Little when he received two yellow cards in less than a minute.

Queen’s came close in 67 minutes when Galt’s 30 yard free-kick came back off the Cowden bar as the short handed Blue Brazil tried hard to gold on.

Queen’s got the ball into the Cowden box whenever they could from that point on and there needed to be some desperate defending by the Fifers, but their aerial superiority ensured no way through for Queen’s.

Then with five minutes left Renton created a good chance for Connor Smith but he delayed his shot and the opportunity was lost.

Then in time added on Renton got clean through but his shot deflected off a defender and went out for a corner.

The bad tempered affair ended with Queen’s Finnie seeing red in time added on after a shocking tackle on Hamilton.

Cowdenbeath: Kevin Drabowski (7); Jamie Pyper (7), Harvey Swann (7); Jamie Todd (7), Craig Barr (7), Chris Hamilton (8); David Cox (6), Robbie Buchanan (7), Connor Smith (7), Kris Renton (7), Graham Taylor (7) (Mikey Herd 84 (2)). Subs not used, Euan Valentine, Archie Thomas, Kyle Sneddon, Ross Pollock, Jacob Glass and Mac Whyte.

Queen’s Park: Trialist (7); Mortimer (6) (Finnie 46 (6)), Summers (6); Little (6) (Moore 57 (3)), Jamieson (7), Clark (7); Lidouren (5)(Block 46 (6)), Main (7), Koulder-Aissa (7), Galt (7), McGrory (7). Subs not used, Purdue, Gibson, Thomson and Heraghty.

Referee-Peter Stuart (5).