Burgh hit for six by Pollok

Published 29 Jul 2009 14:38 0 Comments

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Johnstone Burgh 0 Pollok 6

JOHNSTONE BURGH were swept aside by Premier League outfit Pollok on Monday night in their final friendly of pre-season.

The Glasgow side put six past their hosts, but despite such a heavy defeat Burgh boss George Walker insists his young side can only learn from the experience.

Goals from, Andy McLaren and Paul McAulay plus a brace from both Andy Essler and Alan Waddell rounded up the scoring with the Burgh failing to really threaten the visiting backline.

Walker admits his side were outclassed by Rab Sneddon's Pollok but feels they won't be too disheartened heading into the new season starting on Saturday.

He said: "If you look at the Pollok side, there's a lot of quality players; very experienced players, in it.

"Apart from David Brolly and Raymond Donaghy, we have a really young squad and we were playing a team of that quality, their passing and movement were excellent - their quality stood out a mile.

"It is a learning experience for us and we'll try to take the positives from the game.

"In the second half we improved; we kept the ball better but we didn't create anything.

"The biggest thing is that we didn't work hard enough.

"On the whole, I'm not disappointed to be honest. We've played two teams in the Premier that we've learned from and played two other teams and we've held on.

"I think it will put us in good stead, at the end of the day we're not going to be playing Polloks and Clydebanks every week.

"No disrespect to the other teams in the division but if we play like how I know we can play and we sort out all the coaching side of things, then I think we have a good chance of promotion. We've picked up a few injuries - big Steph (McGarrigle) was out tonight, young Fitzpatrick and young Taylor came off with hamstring injuries and John Cuddihy has a shoulder injury.

"I always use the League Cup for preparation for the league, so the idea is that we use the whole pool because for the system we're going to be playing we'll need every player.

"We play Greenock here on Saturday and we'll use the whole pool of players that we have."

Greenock visit Keanie Park on Saturday with a 2pm kick off but the Burgh could be without a number of players including new signing Steven Fitzpatrick who recently agreed a deal.

This article appeared in The Gazette 29 Jul 09

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