Livingston 3 Queen’s Park 0

Queen’s Park remain in 7th place in the William Hill Championship after a 3 nil defeat at Livingston.

Steven MacLean shuffled his squad as Queen’s headed east to the Home of the Set Fare Arena. Jadan Raymond and Reece Evans started, with places on the bench for Kyle Hurst and Roddy Macgregor. Seb Drozd failed to recover from his injury sustained in Wednesday evenings game at Hampden.

The game kicked off in bright sunshine, with strong vocal encouragement from the travelling Queen’s fans on the far side. As has been the case in recent games, the opening period looked bright for the Spiders. With 6 minutes on the clock, Zak Rudden broke clear on the right wing, outpacing former Spider Danny Wilson, however the Queen’s attack was crowded out by covering defenders and the chance was lost.

Unfortunately for Queen’s, history would repeat in that after a fairly even start, the Spider’s defence was breached. This time 14 minutes were on the clock as Lewis Smith cut inside from the right wing and his curling dipping shot from 25 yards looked to clip the underside of the crossbar before nestling in Cal Ferrie’s net.

Less than 5 minutes later and it was 2 nil to the home side. A corner from the Queen’s right side went to the back post, it was headed back into the mix and a shot from Robbie Muirhead found the back of the net.

The home side were dominating play and it was no surprise they found a 3rd goal before the break, this time a Scott Pitman pass across the front of the Queen’s defence found Stephen Kelly at the edge of the box whose first time shot put the home side in total control.

Half Time: Livingston 3 Queen’s Park 0

Queen’s made a double substitution at half time in an effort to improve their fortunes – Jadan Raymond and Reece Evans making way for Ryan Duncan and Roddy Macgregor.

In truth the second half was fairly quiet, with the home side content to pass the ball around the park and not having too much by way of attacking threat from Queen’s to worry about. Cal Ferrie made a sharp save low to his left side to prevent the scoreline increasing.

Livi made use of their bench as the half wore on and although Queen’s had a couple of decent spells of possession, there was little by way of attempts on goal.

Although Queen’s remain in 7th place in the table, results elsewhere means the gap between the bottom four teams has tightened. Next up for the Spiders is Dunfermline at Hampden next Saturday.

Full time: Livingston 3 Queen’s Park 0

Queen’s Park: Ferrie (C), Longridge, Jackson, Rudden, Turner (Hickey-Fugaccia 69), Raymond (Macgregor 46), Devine, Evans (Duncan 46), Montgomery, King, McGinlay
Unused subs: McGovern, Hurst, Scott, McLean, Sowa, McGarva

Livingston: Prior, McGowan, Pittman, Kelly (Ubochioma 72), Fraser, Brandon (C) (Finlayson 80), L. Smith (May 61), Muirhead (Shinnie 61), Tait, Montano (Yengi 61), Wilson
Unused Subs: Hamilton, Clarke, McAlear, Nottingham

Referee: Dan McFarlane