Penalty thriller sees Formartine claim a third round Scottish Cup place
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The fact that this second round tie in the William Hill Scottish Cup needed 120 minutes of play and a penalty shoot out to settle it was a fair reflection of how closely matched these two teams were, writes conrespondent Colin Keenan.
Never at any point was there an indication in the style or standard of play that the League 2 visitors came from a higher tier of the game.
These teams have now met three times and United hold the whip hand at two victories to one.
Given that United have had a Covid induced period of inaction since their last competitive game in the first week of January while the visitors were spared that aspect of Lockdown ,their task looked formidable albeit the reward for victory -a home tie against Premiere League Motherwell was seductive in the extreme
The game began at a fair lick with Annan initially slightly more fluent than Formartine, keeping a generally tidy shape in midfield and feeding balls via Wallace and Macaw to the lively looking Smith and for the first five or ten minutes.
United were made to work hard to match up and close down some early attacks.
Despite managing to make their presence felt at the Annan end after a Stuart Smith charge down the left and a Park snapshot that flew just wide right, United found themselves a goal adrift in the ninth minute.
Wright clipped the ball wide left to Wallace but continued his forward run to the front edge of the box to flick on the return for SMITH to drill it
past Main’s right hand from ten yards put.
This looked ominous for United but they had both the character and the game to cope.
Without any appearance of panic they began to impose themselves on Athletic.
There was a bit of huff and puff about it but the scales of lay off rust were shed as they began to squeeze the visitors back into the final third at the village end.
Full backs Crawford and Smith were linking well with midfield and forwards and shots, albeit from distance, began to show their intent.
Norris and Jon Smith went close and Kinnear stretched to take a Rodger drive.
It didn’t take United long to get right back in it and a after brief period of sustained pressure they equalised in some style after a finely judged cross from Crawford was met by a ferocious downward header from Stuart Smith as he crashed the ball home in the 20th minute.
From then on United looked like that they had at least as much to offer as Annan as well as the confidence to go with that.
It was never elegant, seldom fluent, but always full of genuine endeavour.
Possession and territory were fairly evenly shared until the interval.
Thereafter United gradually gained the upper hand in each of those dimensions and were decidedly unfortunate not tto ake the lead after a sweeping foray into visiting territory concluded with a a quickly taken 12 yarder from Rodger rebounding to relative safety from the right upright in the 67th minute.
For their part Annan felt hard done by when a Smith effort was cleared off the goal line a couple of minutes later.
With extra time beckoning the visitors maximised pressure on the United box and although it needed a couple of saving tackles from McKeown and Kelly to do it, Formartine held out resolutely.
They dominated the first period of extra time but failed to get the necessary breakthrough.
Annan weren’t going home without a fight and clawed their way back into it in the final fifteen, but again United were having none of it and the game went to penalties.
Birthday boy keeper Kevin Main has a well deserved reputation as a penalty save expert and enhanced it with an outstanding shoot out display by stopping all but one of Annan’s efforts -well one went over the top.
Greig, Anderson and Gethins sunk theirs and United will now prepare to face Motherwell.
