Brechin City 1-0 East Fife

East Fife fell to their second consecutive defeat at Brechin.

They weren't so much handed it by East Fife on Saturday afternoon, they went out onto the park and totally earned it.

From the first whistle to the last, Darren Dods' side were a step ahead of their opponents and there could be no arguments when ref Graham Beaton blew his full-time whistle and brought to an end a hoodoo which started in April 2017.

Apart from a couple of half chances in the first half and a decent spell of possession towards the end of the second, East Fife had a day to forget.

Liam Watt crashed an effort over the bar in a first half which was dominated by the hosts.

Ryan McGeever headed over the bar, Boris Melengui had a goal chopped off and Giuliano Morena, Kalvin Orsi and Jordan Sinclair all passed up chance to open the scoring as the hosts found their range.

East Fife had offered little, and there was a growing sense inside Glebe Park that this could be the day they finally got their noses in front for the first time since they beat Albion Rovers on April 29, 2017.

The visitors needed to improve, but didn't, and Brechin took a deserved lead when Sinclair collected a long ball up the park and beat Brett Long from inside the box.

There's no shortage of creative players in the East Fife squad, but they failed to carve their hosts open.

Anton Dowds was introduced from the bench and he certainly added some impetus and attacking threat to the Fife side.

East Fife's best period of the game came late on when a Ross Davidson cross drifted along the six yard box and only lacked a taker.

At the other end Long kept the score down when he tipped an Orsi drive over the bar.

Boss Darren Young said: "It was poor from the standards we've set in pre-season and just poor from start to finish.

"We had a few times in the game when we did ok but it wasn't good enough over the whole period.

"We changed the shape in the first half to match up against them and felt it worked.

"But they created the better chances and we didn't create anywhere near enough.

"We had four or five crosses or had chances to get the ball into the ball and we're hitting first men or getting them ball taken off us and then getting countered from our own play."