Elgin City succumbed to their third successive defeat, with a disappointing Friday night performance against East Fife at Bayview ending in a 2-0 loss.
The result leaves the Black and Whites in eighth place in League Two.
Elgin came into the fixture on the back of a poor run of league results, having recorded one solitary victory over the course of their last eight games.
It would have been reasonable to expect the Borough Briggs side to come out of the traps flying and determined to improve things against the promotion-hunting Fifers.
For the majority of the first half, however, it was very much one-way traffic from the home side and it was only due to an exceptional goalkeeping performance from Daniel Hoban that the deficit was kept to a single goal at the interval.
The City keeper displayed outstanding courage midway though the first half to deny East Fife frontman Scott Shepherd as he advanced unchallenged on goal.
But he was powerless to prevent the Methil men taking the lead on 34 minutes when the towering Aaron Steele rose above the static Elgin defence to head home from an Alex Ferguson corner.
35' | Goal East Fife. Ferguson picks out Steele from a corner on the far side who rises highest to head home the opener
East Fife 1-0 Elgin City https://t.co/SCDQuMVpe9
— East Fife FC (@EastFifeFC) March 24, 2023
Hoban kept his side in the game with yet another superb save from the dangerous Shepherd effort six minutes from the break and his attacking colleagues finally sprung to life in the closing stages of the first half, with striker Kane Hester seeing his close-range effort blocked by East Fife goalkeeper Allan Fleming. The resultant loose ball fell to Tom Findlay, who looked certain to score, but crashed his shot against Fleming’s left-hand post.
Top scorer Hester had spent most of the first half chasing long balls out of defence only to be rewarded with little return for his efforts against a powerful East Fife backline, but he almost levelled the scores on the hour when he broke clear before being denied by Fleming’s last-ditch dive.
The home side secured victory with 10 minutes remaining, though, when Alan Trouten netted from the penalty spot after Shepherd had been fouled by Darryl McHardy.
Elgin manager Gavin Price was disappointed with the outcome, but felt there that there was very little between the two teams on the night.
“I am disappointed,” he said, “but games in the this league are always on a knife edge and we’re not coming out on top of these games just now.
“We made a slow start tonight and didn’t really start playing until East Fife scored.
“We had our chances, but we have to be more clinical in front of goal – otherwise we’ll get punished.
“It was also disappointing to lose a goal from set piece, but these are things we need to work on in the games which remain.”
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