Star aim to sign up striker

Jan 10 2013 by Stuart Gillespie, Galloway News

Dalbeattie Star are closing in on forward Grant Middlemiss.

The ex-Threave Rovers striker is available after leaving Gretna 2008 and appeared as a trialist in Stars 7-1 win over Crichton on Saturday, scoring the final goal.

Now player/boss John MacBeth is looking to get him tied up until the end of the season.

He said: Hes a good all round player and hell boost the squad. Were looking to get another couple of bodies in to boost numbers. Its hard to do that and boost quality as well but someone like Grant gives us both and will give our strikers a bit more competition.

He scored with a tremendous finish and he gives us more options.

Its his choice what he does, he might want to think about it for another week or two or he might want to sign.

Middlemiss started on the bench for Saturdays game, his potential new club taking the lead when Lee Wells headed in Lewis Sloans corner.

A terrific ball from Rab Harkness then found Sloan who fired in his first of the afternoon.

But after a bad miss from the prolific Scott Milligan Crichton got one back, Ross Newlands firing home from 20 yards with a terrific dipping shot.

The first goal after the break was always going to be vital and it came for Star, Grant Parker teeing up Sloan who chipped in his second. His third arrived soon after in less spectacular style as his cross missed everyone and ended up in the net.

In the last quarter of an hour Star added some gloss to the scoreline, sub Jak Dingwall scoring after good work by Hugh Cameron before the latter got the sixth after a fine pass from Jordan Muirhead.

And in the final few minutes Cameron and Craig Fergusson combined for Middlemiss to grab the seventh.

MacBeth was delighted with the final result, Sloan in particular coming in for praise after his treble.

It was a good hat-trick from Lewis although I didnt think he was having the best of games before he got the first goal, he said.

He was quiet by his standards and a bit out of sorts, then he popped up with a great run, a tremendous chest down and a great finish

His second goal was an absolute beauty of a chip, it was inch perfect. His third one was a cross but hell probably try to claim it was a shot!

It was an open goal Scott missed but it hit a bobble and his shin and went over so you cant plan for that. We scored seven goals and our two strikers that started didnt score.

Grant Parker put in an excellent shift, his all round play was tremendous but he just couldnt get that goal.

We were 2-0 and looking quite comfortable and just before they scored they missed a sitter so they were due a goal, but it was a bad one to give away.

We told them at half-time to shut the door on them again as to be fair to them thats what they did. They missed so many chances as well it could have been even more.

Middlemiss could be signed in time to feature in Saturdays Potts Cup tie at Nithsdale Wanderers.

And MacBeth is hoping to use the match to get some game time for his players after their lay-off over the festive period.

He added: In the past Ive changed it around quite a lot for cup games but Ill not make as many after the time off as were needing to get the boys back in playing regularly so Ill try not to disrupt it too much.

Gary Kerr is back in training so is back in contention so we should just about have a full squad Struan Parker and Paul Cook will be missing and Im still a few weeks away from being back.