Elgin City manager Gavin Price and goalkeeper Thomas McHale were in agreement that Saturday’s uninspiring goalless draw at a rain-lashed Central Park was, to quote a well-worn cliche, “a fair result”.
It was just enough to move them up to fifth place in League Two after overtaking Queen’s Park on goal difference, although they are now six points behind Annan Athletic who occupy the final play-off spot.
Price had been understandably distraught on Tuesday night when the Black and Whites threw away a two-goal lead at Stenhousemuir before conceding an injury-time equaliser, but he was a much happier man on Saturday despite not taking all three points against Gary Bollan’s side.
He said: “It was a pretty even game with not a lot of chances for either side.
“Neither team did enough to win the game and take all three points and we pretty much cancelled each other out, so you can’t really grumble about the result.
“Cowdenbeath made life difficult for us and it was quite congested in the middle of the park, but I thought it was a battling performance from us.
“Nil-nil was a fair result and, although it doesn’t do a lot for us in the table, I’m happy enough with a point. It’s a reasonable away result for us.”
Goalkeeper McHale posted his first clean sheet since November 2, but City were unable to grab their first victory since they beat Annan 4-0 that same day. Elgin’s away results have been particularly frustrating and you have go back to a Challenge Cup game in Airdrie in mid-October for their last win on the road.
McHale said: “We train hard every week to set up our team, and we’re confident we can beat anyone on our day, but things have just not gone our way recently.
“It was a fair result in the end today. Conditions weren’t great and neither team got going.
“It wasn’t a good game for the fans to watch, but you have to dig these results out sometimes. We didn’t manage to create anything, which is not like us, but we’ll take a point.
“We’ve lost a few late goals to our cost recently and you never know what can happen. We battled to the end today and made sure we didn’t concede.”
Back-to-back home games against the bottom two, Albion Rovers and Brechin, offer an ideal opportunity to gather some pre-Christmas points but McHale is already wary of City’s demanding New Year schedule against the top two teams in the division.
He knows those two games could prove defining matches in his club’s season.
McHale said: “We’ve got Cove Rangers away and then Edinburgh City come to us after that, so those are two really big fixtures to look forward to.”
