Kilmarnock qualify for knockout stage of the Betfred Cup

Posted Sunday, July 29, 2018 by PA

Second-half goals from Eamonn Brophy and Kris Boyd were enough for Kilmarnock as they qualified for the knockout stage of the Betfred Cup with a 2-0 win against Queen’s Park.

Killie’s front two both netted well-taken goals in what was a largely frustrating afternoon for the Premiership side, against a well organised Queen’s defence.

Chris Burke was lively throughout the afternoon and fired the hosts first real effort on goal midway through the first period. Brophy then sent a smashing drive off the side netting from similar range as the Spiders defence continued
to restrict the Killie attack to speculative efforts.

The breakthrough goal arrived just after the hour mark. The bright Mikael Ndjoli skipped past James Grant on the left-hand side and squared for Brophy. The former Hamilton player took one touch to steady himself and then side-footed past Jordan Hart for his first goal since the start of March.

The goal seemed to relax Steve Clarke’s side – particularly the central-defensive pairing of Scott Boyd and Kirk Broadfoot who had looked shaky up to that point.

Queen’s did little in an attacking sense for the rest of the match and the gloss was added to the scoreline in stoppage time when Kris Boyd dispatched a penalty kick into the bottom left-hand corner.