\n The Wasps booked a spot in the next stage of the competition with one game to spare after Saturday\u2019s result.\n<\/p>\n
\n The hosts took the lead through Quinn Mitchell beating Tochukwu Ogayi one-on-one.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alloa turned things around early in the second half through two quickfire goals from Luke Rankin and Conor Sammon.\n<\/p>\n
\n Andy Graham said: \u201cThat was the message today was to get us through to the next round and we\u2019ve done that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He made give changes from the midweek win at Kelty Hearts \u2013 firstly switching to a 3-5-2.\n<\/p>\n
\n The gaffer made up the centre of defence and he was flanked by David McKay and youngster Leo Easdon.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kalvin Orsi and Steven Buchanan featured as wing-backs on either end of Kurtis Roberta and Cameron O\u2019Donnell in midfield.\n<\/p>\n
\n Luke Donnelly knitted the centre of the team with Rankin and Sammon up top.\n<\/p>\n
\n Orsi had the first effort after McKay\u2019s free-kick went all the way to the attacker; he skied the opportunity.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rankin did well to control the ball and play in Sammon, but the Irishman couldn\u2019t get a clean connection in it.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ogayi pulled off an impressive acrobatic save to deny Edinburgh; they appealed for a penalty shortly after but were ignored.\n<\/p>\n
\n Robbie Mahon proved himself a very dangerous outlet for the hosts, giving young Easdon a good test \u2013 Ogayi had another fantastic save to stop him.\n<\/p>\n
\n A long ball through reached Mitchell and the Wasps keeper came off his line but was beaten in the one-on-one for the opener.\n<\/p>\n
\n McKay stood firm and pulled off a goal-line clearance to stop Edinburgh from getting a quick second.\n<\/p>\n
\n Graham continued: \u201cReally disappointed in the first half and the way that we played, it was more to do with the basics we game.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI felt the aggression, the will to go and get on the ball, the bravery to get on the ball \u2013 we talk about it all of the time; bravery\u2019s not smashing into tackles.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBravery\u2019s taking the ball under pressure and I don\u2019t feel we did that in the first half at all.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was really disappointed, I include myself in that, but the whole team was so disjointed and so unlike us.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEdinburgh should have been out of sight, it was a brilliant goal-line clearance from Dave McKay to keep us in the game.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The Wasps came out of the break with much more attacking impetus and put Edinburgh on the back-foot.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sammon\u2019s strike was saved by Weir and O\u2019Donnell\u2019s corner curled dangerously towards the back post but could not be met by anyone.\n<\/p>\n
\n Alloa had their just rewards after a brief stramash in the box fell for Rankin \u2013 he struck it on the volley to level the scoring.\n<\/p>\n
\n Orsi, who had teed up Rankin for the equaliser, sent a ball in from deep that met Sammon; his header put the Wasps in front.\n<\/p>\n
\n From there, the only complaint Alloa could have had is that they didn\u2019t score more \u2013 Orsi had a fantastic opportunity to put the game to bed but squandered his one-on-one with Edinburgh\u2019s Mark Weir.\n<\/p>\n
\n Graham said: \u201cOne thing we spoke about at half-time is that if teams don\u2019t put us away when they get the opportunity, I always know we\u2019ll get a response from the group of players and that\u2019s exactly what you got second half.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was probably a flip, the wind played a massive part in that, of course it did but at the same time, we looked a real threat second half.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur quality was miles better and the balls we were playing up to our strikers, we started getting them to link up a bit more.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe go and score the goals, we should score more and that\u2019s the frustration from my perspective.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou\u2019d be fuming at the end if you go and lose one but a proverbial game of two halves but the most important thing was to get through to the next round and we\u2019ve done that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n It wasn\u2019t to be for Alloa in terms of more goals and for Edinburgh, they huffed and puffed but couldn\u2019t find a way back into the game.\n<\/p>\n
\n They suffered their first loss in the competition, while Alloa won their third on the bounce.\n<\/p>\n
\n Graham added: \u201cThat\u2019s not a defensive unit, that\u2019s a full team thing \u2013 if you\u2019re not winning the first ball when it goes up, you\u2019re going to be defending a lot more.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur decision making defensively, our quality defensively was really poor, second half was miles better.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat\u2019s more like what I want us to look like as a group, as a team.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult as well, we\u2019re playing 3-5-2, we\u2019re not used to playing that as well so it does take boys a wee bit of time to adjust.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSecond half was much more like us and I was really pleased with that performance and that response.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEdinburgh are a good side, they go 1-0 up, they\u2019ve got their tails up, got really good quality in their team.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou always get a response out of this group and they gave us that today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wasps booked a spot in the next stage of the competition with one game to spare after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-492270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115358328818041536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}