10. Andy Geggan (Dunfermline Athletic)
After a mistake which led to the only goal of the game on Sunday, St Mirren goalkeeper Jamie Langfield apologised on Twitter for his costly error. If Forfar goalie Rab Douglas was to do the same his followers would have their timelines clogged with apologetic Rab tweets every Saturday evening. He certainly must be sick of the sight of Dunfermline this season, as in the three meetings to date he’s conceded 11 times, with Saturday’s latest one-sided contest accounting for four of them. Like last week, Douglas made something of a boob, failing to clutch a bog-standard looking cross from Andy Geggan, dropping it at the feet of Joe Cardle, who capitalised on the mistake to make it 2-0. Geggan’s assist may have been of the fortuitous variety, but his all round display was reminiscent of the type of form we’re used to from the midfielder, dictating the affair from the middle of the park and generally looking a cut-above anything Forfar had to offer. The Pars may not have been at their best, but the 4-0 triumph was their tenth victory of the season by three goals or more. As impressive as that is, Ayr United are still in hot-pursuit.
9. Robbie Crawford (Ayr United)
Speaking of Ayr United, Ian McCall’s men made it ten league games unbeaten with a deserved, if slightly strange, match against Stenhousemuir. Dominant for the majority of the game, The Honest Men should have been more than just a solitary goal ahead, scored for them by Ross Caldwell, but a late surge of pressure from Brown Ferguson’s Warriors saw Ayr somewhat clinging on to a match they should really have won at a canter. The early dominance was borne from the midfield duo of Ross Docherty and in particular Robbie Crawford, with no-one in the Stenny line-up adequate enough to match their movement and thrust. With a favourable run of fixtures coming up, Ayr look like they’ll be in-and-around the top of League One for a while yet.
8. Peter Weatherson (Annan Athletic)
Annan Athletic eventually saw off the challenge of Berwick Rangers to progress into the third round of the Scottish Cup, but it hadn’t looked good at one stage. A goal down and shorn of the talents of Smart Osadolor after he and Jonathon Fairbairn were dismissed for an unseemly and completely unnecessary altercation on the touchline, they appeared to be heading out until Peter Weatherson grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. His penalty brought the scores level after 63 minutes and his calm finish with ten minutes remaining to make it 3-1, effectively sealed the match. Sandwiched in-between, however, was the game’s highlight. When a young, bobble-hatted home fan decided to celebrate Josh Todd’s goal, not with smiles and joy, but by flashing v signs and wanker gestures at the Berwick goalie. The magic of the cup.
7. Bradley Donaldson (Cowdenbeath)
A clean-sheet, goal and an assist capped an excellent shift for Cowdenbeath right-back Bradley Donaldson. It was Colin Nish’s team’s first away win of the season and meant they put four points between themselves and foot-of-the-table hedge-obsessives Brechin City in a League One table which grows more fascinating each week. Stranraer’s misery in-front of goal has already been mentioned this season, and it contributed hugely to this 3-0 defeat, with Mark McGuigan in particular guilty of passing up good opportunities after Donaldson’s header had given the Blue Brazil the lead. You’d like to think that the win could kick-start Cowden’s season, however, those pesky Pars are up next in the Fife derby. It could be doom-and-gloom again next week.
6. Paul Woods (Queen’s Park)
Queen’s may have been the overwhelming favourites in their Scottish Cup tie against Stirling University, but beforehand it was a match which had the faint whiff of an upset around it with Stirling sitting pretty in the Lowland League, while Gus McPherson’s team were hamstrung by the absence of forward Chris Duggan through injury. However, while the students applied themselves well, they were ultimately undone by two superb goals from Paul Woods. His first on 25 minutes eased the tension, after he meandered through the penalty-area before drilling a low, left-foot shot home, while his second, an equally fine header ten minutes into the second-half, extinguished Stirling’s hopes of a shock.
5. Rory McAllister (Peterhead)
The excellence of Rory McAllister’s season-to-date has possibly been lost amongst the narrative of Peterhead’s utterly hum-drum season, but with 14 goals he’s only one behind Martyn Waghorn and Faissal El Bakhtaoui in terms of the nation’s top goal-scorers. Admittedly a large dollop of them came against Falkirk in one match, but still, it’s some going. He banged in another on Saturday, the opener in the Blue Toon’s 2-0 win over Airdrieonians, an excellent strike which saw him surrounded by nine Airdrie players, who were all helpless to stop him. The defeat for Airdrieonians means their rather blotchy season rumbled on, amidst reports that manager Gary Bollan was squaring up to a fan at the end of the match. Distressing stuff, or quite funny, depending on how you look at it.
4. Jordan White (Livingston)
Livingston’s unexpectedly dominant 4-1 win against Queen of the South in Dumfries saw them clamber off the bottom of the table with seven points, leaping over Alloa Athletic in the process. Considering Alloa never seem to score any goals that’s a concern for Danny Lennon’s team, unless the plan is to nil-nil draw their way out of trouble this season. Before the weekend, the noises emanating from the Livi players and staff was that they’d been playing well but not taking their chances, but they were the total-package at the weekend when they allied finishing prowess to a fine performance during their victory. Front-and-centre was Livingston striker Jordan White who set up Scott Pittman for Livingston’s equaliser, before nudging them in-front with a header from a Gary Glen cross. More performances like this one and Mark Burchill’s men could soon be overhauling a stricken-looking Dumbarton side.
3. Wes Foderingham (Rangers)
There’s probably a few things that previous Rangers goalkeepers have done that Wes Foderingham won’t. For example, he probably won’t inexplicably crash into the back of his own net while taking the ball with him like Cammy Bell, or set up an online dating profile, using a picture of himself holding a pint like Steve Simonsen. And, with the greatest of respect to Mark Warburton, who may beg to differ, he probably won’t represent England like Chris Woods did in the 1980’s. What can’t be denied is that Foderingham has begun to show the type of agile, obdurate goalkeeping that persuaded Warburton to sign him in the first place. His three excellent saves in the match against St Mirren on Sunday helped drag Rangers over the line to a 1-0 win in what was at times a jumbled performance, especially in defence. A 12th consecutive win next weekend against Hibernian, and you’d struggle to see a scenario where the Easter Road side could possibly get back in the race.
2. John McGinn (Hibernian)
Call the Hibernian performance what you like: mixed-bag, game-of-two-halves, Jekyl-and-Hyde, guid-then-pish, there’s a feeling that this is the type of game that the Hibees may well have lost last season. From being a smite unfortunate to only being two-to-the-good against Raith at the interval, they ended up fairly fortunate to end up with the 2-1 victory, after a Rovers onslaught which lasted the majority of the second-45. There was a fair amount of rage amongst the Raith fans directed towards referee George Salmond, which was understandable, considering Paul Hanlon escaped the concession of a penalty, despite seemingly swapping football for volleyball at one point, but in truth they only had themselves to blame after a timid opening to the match. John McGinn pinged in an exceptional goal to get things going after just four minutes, and the former St. Mirren midfielder continues to prove himself an astute acquisition after another intelligent display. Next week’s match between Hibs and Rangers could be a rare old ding-dong indeed.
1. John Baird (Falkirk)
There was nothing but praise for Steve Aitken’s squad building exercise over the summer, with the likes of Darren Barr, Jon Routledge and Steven Craig expected to lift Dumbarton to a new level. However, after 11 games they’re on the same amount of points as they had at the same stage last season, and more disconcertingly, have conceded the same amount of goals, a rather porous 21. Falkirk ran roughshod over the Sons on Saturday, with John Baird helping himself to three goals, all of which were exactly the same as each other, with the Dumbarton defence seemingly having no grasp of how the offside rule actually works. The trio of strikes means Baird has now scored 13 league goals for Falkirk since joining in January, although curiously, all of them have come away from the Falkirk Stadium. If he can start to produce that kind of goal-grabbing form at his home venue, then Falkirk would start to look a pretty reasonable shout for a top-four spot.
Written by Shaughan McGuigan (@ShaughanM)
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