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Bo'ness United's horrendous run against their local rivals continued in this East of Scotland Cup semi final at Newtown Park, unable to take advantage of their first half superiority and paying the price for defensive errors.
The BUs have made a dreadful habit in recent years of losing early goals in these derby matches, and this midweek evening game was no exception, with the home team gifting Linlithgow a lead before the game was even seventy seconds old. United's goalkeeper Mark Cairns failed to gather a high ball into the box from the right, and his weak punch fell for McLaughlin on the edge of the area. With Cairns out of position, "Boris" could even afford to scuff his effort and still see it nestle in the back of the net.
Thankfully for Bo'ness the remainder of the first period did not carry on in that vein. Indeed, the BUs were notably superior in the first forty five, but were unable to convert this into a half time lead. In fact they struggled long enough for the equaliser. On 7 minutes Dougie Todd had a great chance to level matters when Loney laid the ball off for him in the box, but with a clear view of goal from fifteen yards he blazed over the bar.
With quarter of an hour gone there was another superb chance for the home side to equalise when Chris Dolan whipped in a fine cross from the left flank and found Kevin Thomas slackly marked at the far post, but United's leading goalscorer headed disappointingly over the bar from close range. Two minutes after that John Jeffrey came close for Bo'ness, linking up with Thomas inside the box to carve out a chance, but he had to stretch to get his shot off and swept the ball wide of Greg Logan's right post.
With 35 minutes on the clock Bo'ness were beginning to get that typical derby feeling that it wasn't to be their day. A Jamie Loney free kick on the left wing was sent over to the far post, where Gary Smith got free of his marker, but had to stretch to reach the ball and could only turn his volley across the face of goal.
But just two minutes after that Bo'ness at last had a reward for their efforts. A Billy Struthers cross from the right went just over the heads of Jeffrey and Thomas, but as it looked like another chance had gone begging, Dolan stole in at the far post to meet the ball on the bounce and direct the ball into the net.
Back on level terms at half time, then, but as with the league meeting in April, this was to be a classic "game of two halves". In that 1-1 draw, Linlithgow had dominated the first half before being outplayed in the second. On this occasion, Bo'ness had dominated the first half but were to be well beaten in the second.
Linlithgow were already looking brighter in the early minutes of the second period, and on 51 minutes had an excellent chance to retake the lead when Allison exchanged passes with a team mate on the edge of the box to get behind the defence - however, Cairns made a superb block to keep the scores level.
But not for long. A minute later John Burrows, taking too long to clear his lines, carelessly surrendered possession to Marc Anthony on the edge of the box. Anthony cut inside, kept his composure, and held off the defenders' challenges before drilling home from just over six yards out to make it 2-1.
With Bo'ness still reeling, three minutes later Linlithgow doubled their lead. On the back of two gifts from defensive errors this one had a large slice of luck to it - a volleyed shot on the edge of the box being hooked miserably off target, only to go straight to the unmarked Wood. His first shot from the angle was saved, but the ball kindly broke back to him to knock home the rebound.
It was a hectic period of the match, and the action continued two minutes later when Jeffrey went down under a challenge in the box to win a penalty for Bo'ness. It looked a soft one, but Bo'ness were happy to accept anything which would get them back into the match. Only it didn't - Logan dived to his left to push away Dolan's penalty strike, and that feeling that it wasn't to be the BUs' day set in again, for good.
The belief visibly drained from the home team, Linlithgow comfortably controlled the closing stages to book their place in the final.
Bo'ness United: Cairns; Smith, Dolan, McCluskey, Burrows, Loney, Struthers, Todd, Thomas, Donnelly, Jeffrey.