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Pittodrie beckoned as we played against Newmachar, this afternoon, in the AFC trophy 1^st round. With the team already decided in his head manager Marlow changed it at the last minute which saw a change made to the back four from last week. Michie was in goal, N.Milne, Fulton, Robertson and Sim were in defence. In midfield we had Mitchell, E.Milne, Morgan and M.Woods behind the front two of G.Woods and Anderson .We had the luxury of 3 subs in the shape of England, Graham and Marlow. A terrible surface was not going to enhance smooth flowing football but for the first 20 minutes Halli took the game to the home side. We definitely held the upper hand and produced some good play although did not threaten the home goal that often. Against the run of play Newmachar went in front. They embarked on a left wing raid and far too easily went past a number of our players. The man in possession cut inside to fire home from a tight angle. This had an adverse effect on us and from now until the half time whistle there was a complete turn around in balance of power with Newmachar controlling things. We were all over the place and struggling to cope with their two man attack. Robertson was moved forward slightly and this did start to ease the problems but we were still disjointed most of the time. A second was scored from way out and Michie perhaps could have done better, he was caught just a little too far off his line and a sweet hit went in off the underside of the bar. Despite the keepers positioning the shot should never been allowed in in the first place as firstly the pass into the scorer should have been closed down and secondly the player hitting the goal was given a totally unacceptable length of time to measure his strike. Right on the whistle a 3^rd was scored leaving us with a mountain to climb in the second period.(H.T.3-0). The team were challenged to produce a result in the second half and to come off the pitch with our pride restored. Credit to the lads for rising to this challenge as we went out and produced a much more acceptable performance throughout the second 45mins. We got closer to opponents, we harried, we dominated and competed all over the park. In fact we did everything bar score. That was until the 70^th minute when we scored the best goal of the game. An Anderson free kick was met by G.Woods and he bulleted a header home. The same man should have put us in with a chance of getting something out of the match when in 84mins he was clean through. He had Robertson and E.Milne inside and free but instead weakly shot straight at the keeper. Naturally they then went up the park and scored. The annoying point here was the fact that they scored breaking away from our corner kick! (F.T.4-1). We did not deserve a 4-1 thumping given our second half display, however the facts were there for everyone to see and hopefully learn from. The damage was done in the first half. We must learn to adapt when playing against a 2 man strike force. Excellent match from todays Hallitopman Graeme Fulton. It was also encouraging to see Dave Graham come on and make a big difference. Skipper Jason Keith is scheduled to make a welcome return next week in what will be another cup tie.