Edinburgh pay penalty in Uni battle

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY'S hopes of reaching the semi-final stage of the British Universities Trophy were extinguished by Glasgow University who scored two goals in seven minutes midway through the second half on Saturday.

The two teams could not be separated in an even end-to-end encounter when the referee awarded Glasgow a dubious penalty. First, it was debatable if the incident involving Edinburgh's two defenders Scott Fusco and Alasdair MacKinnon was actually in the penalty box and secondly if the challenge was even a foul.

"I asked the referee why he had given Glasgow the penalty and he said it was because their striker was pushed although none of us could understand that," said Fusco who, for a moment, thought that he had conceded the penalty with a tackle from behind.

No matter what the reason, the referee's decision ultimately changed the game as Scottish Universities player Chris O'Day neatly struck the spot kick low past Mark Tait in the Edinburgh goal.

The second half was 12 minutes old at this point and, only seven minutes later, a long ball down the field from Glasgow goalkeeper Ashley Brown caught out the Edinburgh defence. Stuart Macpherson, MacKinnon and Tait all missed the ball, allowing Kerr the simple task of heading it into the unguarded net.