Peterhead vs Queen's Park Preview - McAllister in fitness battle

Posted Saturday, May 11, 2013 by PA

Peterhead's top goalscorer Rory McAllister is struggling to be fit for the second leg of his side's Irn-Bru Scottish Second Division play-off semi-final against Queen's Park.

McAllister sustained a leg knock as the Blue Toon won 1-0 at Hampden Park in the first leg.

Andy Rodgers, who came on as a substitute and scored the winning goal, will start if McAllister does not make it, while Dean Cowie is expected to recover from a dead-leg.

Callum MacDonald and Davie Ross, who have both had knee surgery, and Martin Bavidge (hamstring) are out.

Manager Jim McInally said: "This tie is pretty finely poised, but our late goal means that Queen's Park have to attack, which will see an exciting game.

"That is fine with us as we have a strong defence and a pretty decent attack as well."

Queen's Park will be without centre-back Ricky Little due to a broken bone in his foot.

Fellow defender Peter Bradley is struggling to make it due to a hamstring problem as the Spiders look to end a run of nine play-off games without a win.

Queen's Park head north determined to shrug off the first-leg defeat due to an injury-time penalty.

Head coach Gardner Speirs said: "Our plans have not changed that much as we had always viewed this as a 180-minute contest where we had to score to progress.

"We score now we force extra time so not much is getting altered.

"We travelled to Balmoor back in February and won 2-0. It goes without saying a repeat of that would be a very good day's work indeed."