It took them 210 minutes and almost went to a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, but Montrose finally progressed to the third round of the Scottish Cup at the second time of asking at the expense of Angus rivals Arbroath.
The visitors took the lead in the Gayfield replay after just six minutes when Chris Hegarty’s speculative long-range effort caught Arbroath keeper Darren Hill off his line and, although the ball was clearly going wide, Hill’s bungled attempt to catch it while squinting into the low sun somehow resulted in it going into the net.
On 21 minutes an almost identical effort from Ross McCord again caught Hill napping to double Montrose’s lead, although at least on this occasion the embarrassed keeper didn’t have a hand in the goal.
Arbroath started the second half with renewed purpose and Alan Rattray swiftly got his side back on level terms with powerful close-range headers on 46 and 51 minutes both from inch-perfect corners delivered by player-manager Paul Sheerin.
Both sides pressed for a normal-time victory but the game went to extra time, with neither team able to break the deadlock in the first period thanks to some heroic goalkeeping at both ends.
With just five minutes remaining, and it looking increasingly likely that the game would be decided with penalties, Martin Boyle ran at goal and, having rounded a defender, slotted home to earn his side victory and a third-round home encounter with Whitehill Welfare.
Montrose boss Steven Tweed said, “I think we had more than enough chances to win that game, even though we were up against a big, strong Arbroath team.
“Chris Hegarty’s goal had a bit of luck attached to it as his long shot threw Arbroath’s keeper but that’s football.”
He added, “Ross took his goal well too and, all in all, it was a good old-fashioned cup tie.
“Arbroath came back at us in the second half and scored twice in quick succession from great deliveries from the corner to draw level.””Game over and job done”Tweed said, “They played to their strengths and used that to their advantage.
“There are a lot of things I could say but all that anyone cares about is the result.
“As far as I am concerned it’s game over and job done.”
Sheerin said, “It’s getting to be a bit frustrating to be standing at the end of a match and saying that we can’t start games and are conceding too many silly goals.
“Montrose’s first goal was just one of these things that happens in football but I can’t fault their second a tremendous shot from long range.
“I thought our performance at the start of the second half was excellent and we fully deserved to get back on level terms-basically doing to Montrose what they did to us in the first half.”
He added, ‘We had numerous chances to take the lead Gavin Swankie, David Dimilta and myself all had decent chances but their ‘keeper was excellent.
‘Then we end up going down to 10 men at the end of the 90 minutes for the fifth week in a row and that obviously didn’t help us going into extra time.
“Playing at home you shouldn’t expect to lose three goals but that’s what we allowed to happen and that’s the difference between going into the next round of the cup or not.”