John Connolly will be a happy man this evening after witnessing one of the best displays of his reign as Queens manager, the team this evening looked secure at the back, creative in midfield and deadly up front. There were no weak areas this evening, Dean Muir came into the midfield role vacated by Stuart Davidson, who could not be cup tied, and worked tirelessly all evening creating many of the openings that the front two of Skinner and Weatherson fed off. In the first half Des McKeown and Paul Kinnaird down the left showed some excellent interplay that led directly to the second goal whilst at the back Andy Aitken was commanding and Mr Versatile Paddy Atkinson, this week called in to the right back role solid throughout.
The game started with Queens pressurising a Clydebank side who could only muster two substitutes and one of them a goalkeeper, immediately. Stephen Skinner showing early on that he had a fondness for solo runs as he zeroed in on goal a couple of times. PK and Des McKeown demonstrated that experience counts in this league by playing a some good one touch passing down the left with Kinnaird showing all the ability that he so often had shown against Queens.
It took only seven minutes for top scorer Peter Weatherson to get his name on the scoresheet as the ball broke to the edge of the box where the Geordie frontman cracked it first time through a ruck of players and into the net.
Queens continued to press and the confidence in the side was evident as players swapped roles, Des McKeown popping up charging in on the right hand side of goal and just failing to connect with a nicely flighted Stephen Skinner ball that he had lifted over the heads of the defence.
A minute later and the scoring was complete, Des McKeown with a throw in on the left, feeding Paul Kinnaird who somehow managed to beat his opponent and hit the bye-line before sending in the perfect cross for Peter Weatherson to head over the keeper and score his and Queens second.
The threat to the Bankies goal was coming from both flanks, Paddy Atkinson was next to turn provider as he turned his man on the right, fed Skinner who cut it back for Peter Weatherson to hook just over the bar, some of the doonhamers build up play was exceptional and had the Bankies on the back foot for most of the half.
Warren Hawke has settled well into his midfield role but still has the taste for goals as he managed to put enough power into a 25 yard header to make the 'keeper tip it over the bar, Warren being first on the spot to capitalise if the keeper hadn't managed a clean clearance.
The half concluded with Jon Sunderland swapping his normal right wing role for a run down the left from where he sent in a testing cross that the Bankies defence just managed to clear before it reached Peter Weatherson, the resulting corner found its way to Dean Muir whose thunderous effort was unlucky to strike a defender and then cleared to safety.
Queens left the field to a standing ovation for one of the best first half performances seen at Palmerston for quite some time.
Unfortunately the second half didn't quite live up to the first as the Dumfries men seemed to have settled for a 2-0 win and in reality they were never seriously threatened during the whole of the second half, although the Bankies made a few chances and had some good possession there were no real openings of note from them.
From Queens, Stephen Skinner remained industrious all half and chased down everything although he was unlucky not to get any clear cut chances on goal, some tactical substitutions were made by Queens near the end with all three subs used in the last ten minutes.
The reward for Queens is a trip into territory only visited once before as they travel to Elgin to do battle in the second round of the Scottish Cup, hopefully the result will be the same as it was the last time we visited the northern town when Queens won 3-0 back in 1936 in the same competition.
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