Tranent 5 (Docherty 4mins & 38mins, Wringe 20mins, Lander 28mins, Greig 88mins)
Blackburn United 0
Within five minutes of kick-off the hosts were ahead when a mix-up in the United defence saw a fortunate ricochet allowed space for a left to right delivery that found DOCHERTY arriving on the right to cut inside John Drummond and smash an effort across Craig Saunders and into the net. Watson then manouvered across the eighteen yard line before hitting a shot over. Blackburn, though, really should have been level in ten minutes when David Howe’s free-kick found Keiran Sweeney in good space plumb in the centre of goal but his header somehow ended up past the right hand post and Tranent didn’t waste any time in punishing the miss, WRINGE making a blindside run to earn the room to clip past an exposed Saunders. Eight minutes later a quick free-kick saw Watson race into a suspiciously offside position but with play waved on he had the time to square to LANDER who made no mistake. The pick of the first half of goals then arrived six minutes before the interval, DOCHERTY stepping past challenge after challenge before smashing a beauty into the top corner from just inside the box.
With the three points secure, the Foresters Park men might have scored a fifth on fifty eight minutes but Watsons fine run and cross found no takers and six minutes later an even better chance was scorned, Saunders brilliantly saving Docherty’s penalty. John Drummond and Andy McQuillan then combined to move the ball down the Blackburn left but McQuillan’s fizzing delivery was just out of the reach of Richie Hutton. Twenty minutes from time United’s penalty appeals were waved away by the referee when a determined run into the box by Hutton was blocked and when the ball broke to Sweeney he looked to be barged to the ground in the act of shooting. With just two minutes of the ninety remaining Tranent found their fifth and final goal of the afternoon, GREIG getting in behind a flat back-line on the right to whip a cross-cum shot in that was helped on it’s way into the net by a stretching Martin Lawrie boot.
Blackburn United line-up: Saunders, Sayers, Drummond, Lawrie, Millar, Cameron, Hutton (Baillie 77), Howe (Duncan 77), Ferris (McQuillan 55), Sweeney (Fleming 77), McClung Subs (not used): Young, King
Tranent line-up: Swain, Stevenson, Rutherford, Whitson, Lander, Miller, Docherty, Watson, Wringe, Murphy, Donaldson Subs: Thomson, Knox, Greig, Anderson, Jones, Jackson
Referee: Mr. Brent Falconer
Assistants: Mr. Finlay Anderson & Mr. Darren Robertson