Not much happened in the first half. Both teams had a few chances, but nothing really clear cut. Saints best chance came when Annand played a ball in and Gillies couldn't quite connect. A few decent crosses were also produced by Saints for once, but we still looked dodgy at the back. McGinty also managed to pick up a booking for a lunge on Russell Latapy.
The second half started extremely brightly, with a superb effort from Davide Xausa stopped with an equally good save from Craig Hinchliffe in the Saints goal. Falkirk then missed an absolute sitter from the resulting corner.
Saints pushed forward after this, and a fine run from McGinty almost resulted in the opener. Taking on a few players, he surged into the box and lashed a shot past Falkirk goalie Allan Ferguson (who 4 of his 9 Saints goals have been scored in at) only to see it hit the post. Annand could have tucked the rebound away but was celebrating!
Both sides continued to attack, and an extremely bad Kirk Broadfoot cross/pass/shot/whatever was so bad and high that it almost caught Ferguson unawares, as it almost looped under the crossbar before Ferguson palmed it away.
With just over 10 minutes remaining, Gus MacPherson had to be stretchered off after fouling a Falkirk player. The free kick was swung into the box, and someone (I've read of Laurie Ellis, Kevin McGowne and Broadfoot all being the culprit) made one of the most blatant shoves I've ever seen, to give Falkirk a penalty. John O'Neil (the ex Hibs one, not ours) took it, and Hinchcliffe pulled off a wonderful save to keep the scores level. In his few months at the club, he's already saved more penalties than Ludovic Roy!
Both teams continued to go for a goal which would surely be the winner but it didn't come, despite Saints having some fairly legitimate penalty claims turned down. The referee and his assistants were a joke. Every time a Falkirk player went down, even if unchallenged, a free kick was given. Xausa got away with far more than he should have after his booking, whilst the linesmen only flagged for fouls after the referee had blown!
A draw was a fair result, and it's our first clean sheet of the season. Near enough everyone performed well, and hopefully we can have nearly everyone fit for the vital match against Ayr United in a fortnight.