Football: Luck on Wright side

Clyde 0

Kilmarnock 1

Wright pen 63

Attendance: 4,479

Paul Wright helped Kilmarnock nervously sidestep a potential banana skin in their fourth-round Scottish Cup tie at Broadwood.

Just as Second Division Clyde looked like adding the Premier League side to their recent list of Cup conquests, Wright killed those hopes with a fortuitous 63rd-minute penalty.

Scoring has come naturally for Wright ever since Alex Ferguson gave him his debut as a 16-year-old a decade ago at Aberdeen. The bitter irony is that his handiwork undid the present young hopefuls of the Scottish scene - the Clyde manager Gardner Speirs has fashioned a team of which half are teenagers.

Kilmarnock launched themselves into this tie with real vigour. They almost went ahead after 14 minutes when captain Gus MacPherson's driven cross took a deflection off the Clyde defender Keith Knox and brushed wide off the post for a corner.

Clyde, however, refused to be subdued and two Kilmarnock bookings within three minutes provided evidence that this state of affairs was frustrating them. Colin McKee was fortunate only to see yellow for a shocking lunge on James Prunty. Then Kevin McGowne received a caution for tripping Paul Brownlie.

Dragoje Lekovic almost presented Eddie Annand with a chance right on half-time when he dropped the ball but the Kilmarnock keeper recovered it at the second attempt.

After the interval Brownlie and Annand lacked crucial pieces of luck to turn their menace into goals. Clyde's fortune, though, was not hiding from Kilmarnock, who benefited from an outrageously soft penalty award in the 63rd minute when Prunty was judged to have held back Wright and Kilmarnock's top scorer slammed in the spot-kick.