For the second week in a row the Blue Toon were on their travels, this time taking a trip to Station Park to face Forfar Athletic. Peterhead started the weekend top of the league following last week’s away win against Stirling Albion and looked to leave Forfar in the same position. Their opposition had a huge away victory of their own the week prior, lifting themselves off the foot of the table with a 1-0 win in Stranraer, moving up to 9th above Bonnyrigg Rose.
Peterhead decided to stick with last week’s winning formula, going with the same lineup that started at Forthbank last Saturday.
The last time the two sides met at Station Park was in December, and ended in a 1-1 draw with Peterhead playing the second half with 10 men after Andy McCarthy was sent off just before half time.
The Blue Toon found themselves down to 10 men against Forfar once again, with Kieran Shanks being shown two yellow cards for similar challenges on 3 and 11 minutes, giving the hosts a man advantage for the best part of 80 minutes. Both bookings came as a result of Shanks challenging with Allan for a header and was deemed by referee Jordan Curran to have jumped into the header with his elbows out, and caught Allan. This of course meant Peterhead were without their top scorer or with any striker on the pitch, and the hosts had their tails up with their man advantage. Forfar started to send more bodies forward to make their momentum count, but the Peterhead defence stood firm and Stuart McKenzie had barely a save to make in the first half. Jason Brown and Scott Ross put in their fair share of blocks, one of which from Brown stopped McLean from getting an effort away at what was near enough an open goal.
Peterhead looked to counter whenever possible, with the majority of their good play coming down the right hand side. Max Barry, Danny Strachan and Cammy Smith combined well on a number of occasions, but without a focal point in attack shots were few and far between. Arguably the best Peterhead chance of the game was a shot from Seb Ross in the 25th minute, who cut in from the left wing and worked himself a half yard inside the Forfar box, before shooting straight down the middle and into the arms of McCallum. Max Barry almost managed to catch out McCallum just before half time, with a similar chance to Seb Ross but on the opposite flank. Barry shot low at the near post, but the unsighted Forfar goalkeeper managed to get down just in time to parry the shot away.
Half-time: Forfar Athletic 0-0 Peterhead
The second half for the most part was a similar story, with Forfar having more attacking opportunities but the Blue Toon back line defending resolutely. Forfar made one change at half time, with Cannon replacing Sweenie-Rowe, hoping fresh legs could help them break down the defence. The hosts looked to aim for McLean up front putting as many crosses as they could into the Peterhead area, but still rarely threatening McKenzie’s goal.
Having seen their opposition make two more changes, the Peterhead bench decided on 74 minutes to make two changes of their own, seeing Oli Colloty and Jack Brown on for Seb Ross and Andy McCarthy, who had who had been playing on a yellow card for the entire second half. The choice to send on Colloty showed the Blue Toon hadn’t settled for a draw, and that they still felt they could take all three points from the game. Unfortunately though, the subs would have little opportunity to have the attacking impact they would have hoped, with Forfar managing to keep them pegged back for the most part. Despite playing almost the entire game with an extra player, Forfar never managed to find the net, and the spoils were shared. Peterhead have now kept 5 clean sheets in their last 6 games, and still returned home again at the top of League Two.
Full-time: Forfar Athletic 0-0 Peterhead
Starting XI: McKenzie, Danny Strachan, Scott Ross, Jason Brown, Dunne, Forrest, McCarthy (Jack Brown 75’), Barry, Smith (Walker 86’), Seb Ross (Colloty 75’), Shanks
