Craig Watson says Cammy Ballantyne’s red card was “a complete game changer” which saw FC Edinburgh rack up a 6-0 hammering at New Broomfield on Saturday.
Defender Watson says the Diamonds were dominating and looking likely to score, when John Robertson’s shot deflected off Ballantyne on its way past the post in 16 minutes, with referee Graham Grainger showing him a red card and awarding a penalty, from which Danny Handling opened the scoring.
James Craigen added a second just before the interval, and Calum Gallagher saw his shot saved from Watson’s cutback in 52 minutes.
But Robertson bagged a double, Ryan Shanley scored the fifth and Craigen notched his second of the game to end a miserable afternoon for Rhys McCabe’s side and end their 25-game unbeaten run in some style.
On the red card, Watson said: “It was a complete game-changer.
“We were totally dominant. We had the possession, we were knocking it about well and we were definitely building well, creating chances and what-not.
“If there was going to be a team to score it was going to be us.
“The red card happened, and I’m not too certain what the rule is, but the ball wasn’t going in the goal, so I’m not sure if it should have been a red card.
“But it happened so we just had to get on with it.
“We’ve had to sit in and soak up the pressure because the game has changed, and they’ve done well for the second goal, but it was a bit of a lucky deflection off big Callum Fordyce to take it past the goalie.
“We were unfortunate to go in at 2-0, but credit to the gaffer, he wanted to be offensive, to keep our ethos of good, positive play and just went for it.
“He didn’t want to sit in and defend being 2-0 down, he wanted to go for it and try and claw it back.”
Watson added: “We started the second half well. It sounds crazy to say, considering what the score was, but even with 10 men we were still passing the ball about relatively well, creating chances.
“At 2-0 we had a good chance to make it 2-1 and we would have been right back in the game.
“But we were unfortunate not to get that goal and there was a phase when they seemed to score with every attack, unfortunately.
“We were very top-heavy, in the sense of throwing bodies forward, which is understandable, trying to chase a goal, but it left us wide open at the back and Edinburgh were clinical.”
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