An amazing 6 players from last Saturdays squad were missing this afternoon with S.Robertson, Westland, Keith, E.Milne, Anderson and Wood all unavailable. On a plus Graeme and Mike Woods, Fulton and England returned and trialist Adam Young was pulled into bolster the squad. Young started the match playing wide left in midfield joining N.Milne, Fulton and Morgan in the engine room. G. and M.Woods formed the attack and Michie was in goal behind Sim, Marlow, C.Robertson and England. Millburn have been riding high in the division and currently sit in the top three. The pitch at Balmedie is very large but the surface is far from perfect. Molehills had been removed or flattened prior to k.o. however the park remained poor at best. Millburn opened up well and forced the issue pressing Halliburton back. The Millburn forwards were extremely pacey and early doors Halliburton were struggling to get out of their own half. Our passing was not up to scratch and we continually gave the ball away which in turn meant that our front two were being starved of any real service. Millburn came close to opening the scoring when a ball was whipped across the face of Michie's goal. The keeper was rooted and blamed the fierce sun as he simply could not see the ball. The home side did then put the ball in our net on the 25 minute mark. Sim failed to get any real conviction on an attempted clearance and the ball fell nicely into the path of a forward. He hit a low drive goalwards and Michie was fooled by a dummy from the Millburn number nine. The keeper timed his dive wrongly and we were one down. In 30 mins. C.Robertson pulled up with a thigh strain but resumed after treatment. Halliburton were now more in the match but despite finishing off the half pressing the Millburn defence we could not find away past the keeper. (H.T.1-0). Andrews was introduced for the second half. Michie moved out of goal into the role vacated by the departing Robertson. Millburn continued to storm forward at every opportunity but we were much more up for it now and matched the home side throughout the second period. Morgan and Fulton were doing well in the middle of the park and the two combined in 55mins. Fulton neatly back heeled into the path of Morgan who from just outside the area fired inches over. Millburn broke through on a number of occasions but their forwards in particular their number nine did his best to ensure we stayed in the game with 3 or 4 bad misses. We had a good chance to level in 70. N.Milne found his way into the box but weakly shot past the far post. Millburn then increased their lead after we, not for the first time in the match threw a throw in straight to one of their players! The ball was immediately launched forward and this time Andrews, who remained glued to his line, was beaten. Halliburton's play had deserved more and we did in fact pull back a goal at the death. A real fluke when M.Woods mis hit a free kick in from the left it somehow evaded a number of players and found its way into the net. In the last minute we won a corner which fell in at the back post with players scrambling to get onto it Millburn hacked it clear and the ref called time(F.T.2-1).

A good 2cnd half performance from Halliburton but the truth of the matter is we did little in the way of creating goal scoring opportunities. In contrast Millburn created many chances and despite missing a good few, if chances are continually there then eventually they will be turned into goals. That indeed was the case and really we can have no gripe with the end result if we consider the chances made ratio. Good effort all over the park however, with a good debut display from Young. Morgan and Fulton did well in the middle, Fulton Hallitopman