St Mirren and Falkirk meet for the first time this season tomorrow in an early evening kick-off at The Paisley 2021 Stadium.
Falkirk made it to the promotion playoffs final last season and while they eventually lost out to Premiership side Kilmarnock it was expected that Peter Houston’s side would make another strong challenge for promotion again this season. The Bairns early season form looked to be contradicting that prediction but over the last month or so they look to have got themselves back on track.
Over the summer Houston lost the services of the impressive duo Will Vaulks and Blair Alston who both moved on to new pastures but he has done well in plugging in replacements for a squad that hasn’t changed too much since last season. Pick of the bunch is midfielder John Rankin, the former Dundee United, Hibernian and Inverness Caley Thistle player is sure to bring a lot of strength and drive to the Falkirk midfield. The Bairns gaffer also weakened some of his promotion-chasing opponents by snapping up Lewis Kidd from Queen of the South and James Craigen from Raith Rovers. Another nice pick-up was Luca Gasparotto, the former Rangers man impressed in a loan spell with Morton last season where he slotted nicely into the Greenock side’s defence.
Falkirk had a poor start to the season losing to Stirling Albion in the first Betfred Cup outing. They redeemed themselves with a 3-0 win over Elgin City which was followed by a 3-0 loss to Premiership side St Johnstone. The group was rounded off with a 2-0 win over Brechin City but The Bairns didn’t tally-up enough points to advance to the next round.
It was a tough start to the league season with fixtures against Hibernian, Morton and Queen of the South as their opening trio of matches. After going down 2-1 at home against Neil Lennon’s Hibernian side, The Bairns nabbed a point at Cappielow with Luke Leahy’s 90th minute equaliser against Morton. A trip to Dumfries followed but a Stephen Dobbie double kept the points with Queen of the South.
The following week their match against Dumbarton looked to be running out as a no-scoring draw until Lee Miller scored an 86th minute winner, since then Falkirk have forged ahead. After a 6-1 win over Elgin City in the IRN-BRU Cup league wins against Raith Rovers (2-0), Dundee United (3-1) and Ayr United (2-0) have catapulted The Bairns up to third place in the league, four points off top spot.
St Mirren got themselves ahead twice in last Saturday’s match at East End Park but somehow managed to still lose out by the odd goal in seven against Dunfermline. John Sutton gave Saints the lead on the half-hour mark which only lasted ten minutes as Nicky Clark pulled The Pars level again. But that man Sutton was on target again just before the break to send Saints into a half-time lead. A freakish own-goal from Andy Webster saw Dunfermline level again and then Clark put them into the lead for the first time. Saints thought they had grabbed a share of the points when Ryan Hardie’s shot flew into the back of the net but Farid El Alagui took advantage of some slack defending from Saints to nab the points for Dunfermline.
Saints didn’t do well against Falkirk last season losing three of the four league outings, the other match saw them get a share of the points in a goalless draw in Paisley at the beginning of March. You have to go back to 17th October 2009 for St Mirren’s last win against Falkirk when goals from Craig Dargo, Billy Mehmet and Tom Brighton countered Brian McLean’s opener for Falkirk.
