It was some dozy defending at the death that cost Queens dear this afternoon as a victory was converted into a draw courtesy of the right hand side of the Dumfries defence who between them managed to concede all three goals and two of them in the last two minutes.

The side originally set up in a 3-5-2 formation once again. Craig Barr came in as did Sean O'Connor as both Scott Robertson and Stewart Kean dropped out. Robertson not making it to the bench.

Livingston started brightly with Lee Griffiths and Armand One forcing Lee Robinson into very good blocks early on. On twenty five minutes Stephen Dobbie served notice that he was fired up today as he cracked an effort out of nothing that almost beat McKenzie in the Livvie goal. Gordon Chisholm had seen enough and converted his 3-5-2 formation to 4-4-2 with the introduction of Barry Wilson and the removal of Andy Aitken who must wonder what he has to do to retain his place as Barr, Lancaster and McCann, all right footed, remained on the park as Aitken trudged off.

The introduction of Wilson did make a difference as he was positioned on his favoured right side and caused problems immediately with his direct running. With ten minutes of the half left Wilson collected the ball wide right, everyone looked for him to go past his marker on the right hand side but he chose instead to step inside and spotted a gap in the visitors defence, with two strides and a superb strike from all of twenty five yards the scoring had started.

The second half saw Queens pressing and a Stephen Dobbie cross was headed over the bar by Bob Harris early on. Then with just ten minutes of the half gone Dobbie collected the ball on the right hand side of the box and in a flash, in a way that only he is capable of, he placed the ball under McKenzie and into the back of the net out of absolutely nothing.

That was enough to allow Chisholm to replace Sean O'Connor with Stewart Kean. The big man had been playing with a heavily strapped knee and his efforts in winning the aerial challenges and knocking down to Dobbie must have been enough to make Gordon Chisholm believe that his defence would be capable of holding out to the end.

On the twentieth minute of the half Craig Barr allowed himself to be 'outmuscled' by the lightweight Leigh Griffiths and whilst Barr was left lying on the turf complaining of an alleged foul Griffiths was slotting the ball past Robinson to give his side a glimmer of hope.

Gordon Chisholm then replaced Stevie Tosh, who had been wayward on a number of passes with Neil Macfarlane. With just five minutes left it looked as though the points were secure as Stephen Dobbie once again produced a goal out of nothing at all. He collected a ball from Stewart Kean on the right hand side of the box, looked up and curled an effort over McKenzie and into the far corner to make it 3-1. Surely game over.

Unfortunately not. With just two minutes left Lee Griffiths easily beat Ryan McCann down the right and crossed for substitute David Winters to bundle into the net at the near post as Robinson tried in vain to keep it out. This spurred the visitors on and with the Queens defence at sixes and sevens Ryan McCann produced a blatant foul on an attacking Livvie player that earned himself a yellow card and the visitors a penalty. Griffiths took the penalty and cooly slotted it home. His celebrations in running towards the Queens fans earned him a yellow card.

For the bulk of Queens fans leaving the ground it felt much more like a defeat than a draw, hopefully the crazy defending doesn't cost the club dear come the end of the season as all three points today should have been secure.

Colin Johnstone

For all of the photos from the game today click on the link
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/queenofthesouthfc