Cove Rangers’ 11-game unbeaten run came to a dramatic end when Alloa Athletic took all three points at Balmoral Stadium with Scott Taggart’s winner coming with the last kick of the match.
The result leaves Cove still in third spot in League One but 12 points behind leaders Falkirk.
It was a disappointing end to a game that had seen the Balmoral side take the lead in the 18th minute when Mouhamed Niang played the ball forward to Blair Yule, who in turn fed Rumarn Burrell whose clever effort from the right beat goalkeeper PJ Morrison for his 16th goal of the campaign.
Both teams had efforts in the first with Paul McGowan and Mitch Megginson going close for Cove awhile Huris Roberts’ shot on the turn for Alloa was not far away at all.
Early in the second period, Mark Reynolds saw his effort palmed away by Morrison following a Connor Scully free kick but after 62 minutes, the visitors equalised when Quinn Coulson’s shot gave Nick Suman no chance after good work by Kevin Cawley.
That changed the whole mood of the game in favour of Alloa.
Taggart had a shot blocked and substitute Steven Buchanan’s excellent low cross from the right just required a team-mate to connect before, in stoppage time, Connor Sammon’s drive across the face of the goal was met at the far post by skipper Taggart for the winner.
Cove manager Paul Hartley found it hard to take any positives from the 90 minutes.
He said: “I didn’t think we played well, I thought we were really poor.
“We got a really good goal but that was probably our only one bit of quality.
“I thought they were the better team.
“I thought they deserved to beat us but even at 1-1 we’d have taken the point to keep the momentum going.
“We were so loose with the second goal, we didn’t defend properly, we switched off and then we don’t clear our lines and the full back scores because people were not doing their jobs properly.
“I thought we were awful.
“There were a lot of warning signs beforehand and we didn’t play well.
“I can’t dress it up any other way, we were miles off it with our play – the quality and our aggression wasn’t there.”
With Edinburgh City visiting on league duty on Saturday, the Cove boss knows a big improvement is required.
He said: “We’ve got to be better, we’ve got to perform better and do our jobs better and we didn’t do that.
“As I said, we scored a good goal but that was about it, it’s a disappointing day for us.
“Rumarn Burrell is scoring the goals but we need other people to contribute as well.
“Maybe some think they can turn up and win easy but we weren’t up for it from the off, our aggression wasn’t that good and we lost too many first and second balls.”
