There wasn’t much between the Dons and Sons in this Scottish Cup quarter final tie, recounts Voice reporter Andrew Watson.
Cold yet relatively windless, it was the match everyone thought would be a wipe out for the away side, and that Dumbarton would be swept away under a deluge of goals inflicted upon them by a stubborn Aberdeen side.
In reality, the only incident that put anything between the two teams was an Aberdeen goal after 53 minutes.
Set piece king Barry Robson found the head of Adam Rooney not long into the second half via a corner, where before, the Reds were generally under the cosh and were lucky not to be at least a goal down.
1-0 Aberdeen!
There were some hairy moments for the home side as the Championship outfit quested for an answer to Rooney’s effort.
Niall McGinn then came on for Cammy Smith after 70 minutes. Scott Vernon followed, replacing goal scorer Rooney on the 83 minute mark.
Robson left the pitch four minutes later, with Nicky Low coming off the bench.
It’s definitely good that Aberdeen are a side able to fashion themselves as a team able to grind out results when not everything is going their way.
On the other hand, it’s a tad worrying that they struggled so much against lower league opposition. They’ll have to turn on the style a tad more to beat teams like their League Cup rivals Inverness.
It could perhaps be put down to fatigue given the spate of fixtures they’ve had this last thirty days or so.
Final score: 1-0.
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