A second half flurry of goals from Leighton McIntosh, Mitch Megginson, Blair Yule and Robbie Leitch ensured Cove Rangers delivered fans a belated Christmas present as Paul Hartley’s side beat East Fife 4-2.
After a goal-less first half the game exploded into life in the second half with six goals scored between the sides.
However, Hartley thinks the overall performance over the 90 minutes was one that he and fans should be happy with, despite conceding twice.
He said: “In the first half we created plenty of chances, we hit the bar and the post and had a couple other decent opportunities.
“I felt we were maybe a bit more patient with our play in the second half, we felt it would come and we ended up scoring some really good goals.
“It’s difficult times just now because of Covid and you see all the games being called off so it was nice to have the fans in today, all 499 of them.
“You need fans at football games, it isn’t the same without the atmosphere so hopefully we can keep it going, if we have enough players we’ll always try and play.”
East Fife’s first goal, an own-goal from Harry Milne, was the first goal conceded by Cove in 618 minutes of league football, something which Hartley admits left them feeling disappointed.
He added: “We’re disappointed to lose those two goals and I thought we could have avoided that. I thought were a bit too loose in our play.
“We try to pride ourselves on clean sheets, and we haven’t quite managed to do that today.”
First half stalemate, but not without chances
It was a lively start from Cove with opportunities falling to Scott Ross and Megginson in the opening minutes, but decent defending and goalkeeping kept them at bay.
Chances continued to fall to the home side as Jamie Masson went close before East Fife almost nicked the opening goal with from a free-kick.
A floated ball was put into the Cove box which cleared Morgyn Neill and landed to the feet of Danny Denholm, but his connection with the ball was poor and it was a comfortable save for Stuart McKenzie in the end.
Despite that scare, it was the home side who continued to dominate with the woodwork rescuing East Fife twice in quick succession as Megginson and Ross hit the post and then the bar.
Goals galore in the second half
Having been on the backfoot for the first 45 minutes, East Fife must have had a talking to at half-time and came out livelier for the second half.
But it didn’t take long for Cove to regain control of the game both in play and in the scoreline, as McIntosh put the home side 1-0 in front in the 54th minute.
McIntosh was waiting in the centre of the box, and leapt the highest to get on the end of Logan’s free kick to score his fourth goal of the season.
Megginson doubled Cove’s advantage less than five minutes later from close range, having latched onto the ball after the East Fife keeper spilled Ross’s floated cross.
It was 3-0 in the 65th minute, as Yule fired home from the edge of the area.
East Fife pulled one back after Cove failed to deal with a corner and Milne made enough contact with the ball for it to roll over his own line to make it 3-1.
Leitch marked his return from injury coming on as a second-half substitute and topped it off with a goal, with a fantastic finish sent into the top corner for 4-1.
There was another consolation goal for East Fife in injury time as Kieran Millar’s outrageous strike left McKenzie with no chance.
