What a difference a year makes. Dunfermline striker Taylor Sutherland was part of the young Pars side that was demolished by a very experienced and strong Kilmarnock reserve side fielded in last season’s SPFL Reserve Cup final. There were nine survivors from that Killie mauling and clearly with another year’s experience and development under their belts they had learned how to approach the
cup final. Tuesday night’s final resulted in a convincing 2-1 win over their Premier League club opponents.
Now 18 years of age Taylor captained the Reserve team and the scorer of the trophy winning goal was quick to eliminate the memory of the 2023 final, telling the website:- “It’s brilliant, a much better feeling than last year’s anyway! It was a tough game. We had the majority of the ball the whole game. They were tough to break down, but we got the final goal in the end to win it. It was brilliant.”
Dunfermline had started the game incredibly well with the home team apparently happy to allow the Pars to maintain possession and to let them do almost all the attacking. Taylor agreed that it was totally against the run of play when Livingston took the lead half way through the first 45.
“Yeah, definitely. It was the first time they were up the pitch and it was a good ball, to be fair, a bit of quality they’ve shown, to the back post and they put it in. It came as a shock but we’ve reacted well.”
Taylor’s brother Jake scored five minutes later to pull the Pars back level thanks to great work from Andrew Tod, Jake was happy to take what turned into the simplest of finishes. He can’t get many easier. “Definitely not! He’s scored plenty of them in his time, so hopefully he can keep scoring them.”
With Max Little virtually redundant and both Sutherlands providing a continual and significant threat, fans and players alike were quietly confident that a winner could be found in the second half. Taylor claimed “you just have to keep believing and being patient and when the next chance that comes, hopefully take it. We did.”
Taylor had been the team’s pre match player on media duties and ahead of the match had predicted that he was going to score. Fifteen minutes from the end he found the next with a marvellous header that gave the Livingston keeper no hope of keeping it out. He laughed at his prediction coming to fruition after he converted from sub Jake Rennie’s cross:-
“I know I did. Keeping the streak up! It was right in the top corner, looped it. It was high in and I just jumped up, saw the defender missed it, so I thought I’d just get my head on it and, luckily, it went in.”
After taking the lead Dunfermline gave few opportunities for the Lions to claw their way back and the skipper added “the last couple of minutes were a bit intense. Obviously, they were pushing for it, so there were long balls, but, overall, we controlled it in the end.”
For Taylor the final whistle and stepping up to lift the trophy was just “brilliant. I was just amazed because, last year, we got beat. We felt the pain of runners-up, so this time we get to feel like the winners, so it’s good and it’s a pleasure.”
For many of that Dunfermline team this is their first taste of silverware, an important feeling since many players can go through their careers without winning a trophy and tucking away a winners medal. Taylor was one who was enjoying that silverware win for the first time and he jubilantly admitted “yeah, definitely the first and hopefully there’s still many to come.”
The win was all the more special for the Sutherland brothers and they enjoyed the memory making family photocalls on the pitch after the trophy presentation and joining in the celebrations.
“We’re both strikers, so we both want to score goals, and luckily we did tonight. I’ve got a whole bookload of pictures! I’ve not got that many family but it does seem as though there was a lot there!”
What next for the cup winners? No celebrations it would seem, Taylor had only one thought of what that would be, “I’ll be back in training tomorrow, big and at it. I’ll keep working hard at it.”
