Peebles Rovers 0 Civil Service 1

ROVERS cling onto second place in the East of Scotland League despite Saturday’s bad-tempered defeat to Civil Service.

Although John O’Hara’s team deserved at least a draw, their misfiring frontline couldn’t convert chances into goals.

O’Hara said: “I am disappointed as these are games we should be winning.

“It is even more disappointing to create so many chances and not take a single one.

“They only had one decent effort on goal in the first half and they scored. We must have had 10 chances in that second half alone and couldn’t take any.”

Both teams played attractive enough football throughout this clash.

But the match will be remembered for a vicious of-the-ball assault after just 13 minutes.

As players jostled inside the area awaiting a Peebles freekick to be delivered from the right flank, Strollers defender Barry Milven was punched in the face.

The referee didn’t see the incident but the former Selkirk player suffered a broken nose and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.

The incident sparked a tirade of verbal exchanges between camps, both on and off the pitch.

O’Hara added: “I genuinely didn’t see what happened. I will speak to my players and I won’t condone that type of behaviour.”

Peebles had applied a fair deal of pressure without forcing a save out of Stuart Burnside in the opening 20 minutes.

And it required a tremendous one-handed save from Darren Walker at the other end to prevent David Stewart scoring with a curling freekick.

A break from Paul Murray down the wing set up Brendan Edwards inside the area but his snap shot was straight at Burnside.

And they were made to pay for the miss just three minutes before the break as Jordan Finnie, who used to play for Peebles, spun away from his marker to head home Stewart’s cross from close range.

Rovers responded well after the break with Donavan Ndiweni and Jason Darling both having early pops at goal.

But Civil could easily have been two-up on 49 minutes as Walker pulled off a great low save to deny Matthew Cunningham at his near post.

Murray was twice denied by Burnside in the space of three minutes just after the hour.

And substitute Scott Sutherland narrowly failed to hit the target from the angle on 68 minutes.

Cunningham picked up his second yellow for Strollers ten minutes later after another rash challenge.

But Peebles couldn’t take advantage of the additional man with Sutherland coming closest to an equaliser with a glancing header which went a foot wide.

Peebles Rovers. D Walker, K Munro, D McAleavy, J Young, D Richardson, C McAleavy, S Anderson, J Darling, P Murray, B Edwards (C Flockhart

74) & D Ndiweni (S Sutherland 60).