Cup final progress for Formartine
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Formartine United 1- Huntly FC 0
As is so often the way with semi finals, this was a tight rather nervy affair in the Aberdeenshire Cup where free flowing football was at a bit of a premium.
That said, the home side were worth their narrow win and had the better levels of possession and territory .
Huntly had some brief spells of dominance but over the 90 minutes Formartine had more and longer periods of being able to pin their visitors down in their own part of the park.
Huntly were the first to progress into opposition territory when Morris and Still combined in an overlap down the left and almost succeeded in playing in Hunter who had made a run through the centre but McLean had read the situation well enough to intercept and quickly turn defence into attack.
This was in the first five minutes while both sides were still sizing up the opposition, a process that was brought to a peremptory end by United pressure in the 9th minute.
Crawford in his first following a period of absence with a rib injury set up a foray down the right flank ,bringing in the pacy Lisle who whipped the ball across to Mykyta in the inside left channel .
The wily wee midfielder burst into the box only to be felled by a late rearward tackle.
There was little doubt and no complaint about the award of a penalty.
WADE took this driving the ball hard, low and with consummate precision a couple of inches inside the left upright.
Huntly were well up for this one and made immediate attempts to retrieve the situation.
Again their pressure came down the left when Morris made a run that took him to a position wide of the box from where he tried to get the ball over to meet the run of Hunter.
However United were soon in a position where they had more of the ball than Huntly and although they did not do quite enough to force their opponents on to the back foot they still looked the more likely to score forcing a couple of corners in the process.
Huntly were finding Wade and Mykyta hard to handle and both Elphinsone and Dalling were driven to the outer limits of legality and occasionally beyond, to contain them.
For all that, Storrier in the visitors’ goal was not really hard worked although a wicked dipping drive by Mykyta twenty yards out and left of centre all but beat him on it's way to rebounding from the cross bar .
The second half began with a brief spell of Huntly pressure but as in the first period the Formartine rearguard absorbed the pressure competently before midfield and forwards again restored their slight edge to proceedings.
Without club captain Rodger and the experienced Dan Park ,who are still missing through injury ,the United midfield never quite reached the level of dominance that they have shown when they are present. Huntly worked hard for each other and had a couple of five or ten minute periods where they made Formartine sweat to maintain their lead.
Sub Blaclock came near to upsetting the home applecart with a 64th thunderbolt that forced Macdonald to full stretch to push the ball to safety via his left upright but that was as near as Huntly got to equalising.
They won a free a free about 5yards shy of the United box but Hunters drive rebounded of a resolute home defensive wall.
The pace which was high from the outset was maintained right to the end by two obviously fit sides but It is Formartine who progress to face Fraserburgh in the final at Turriff on Friday, September 30.
