Eyemouth put promotion hopefuls Craigroyston to the test on Saturday, and should have been 2-0 up within 20 minutes. The Fishermen took the lead early in the game when Johnny Simpson set up Andrew Sword, who dummied a defender and shot low past Craig Weir in the Craigie goal. Sword then almost doubled his tally in Eyemouth’s next attack but his shot rebounded from the post and was cleared. The woodwork then came to the Fishermen’s rescue when Lloyd Dignan’s long range effort hit the crossbar with David Anderson unable to convert the rebound, but the equaliser was only delayed for a few minutes when Kyle Hay took a short free kick to Stuart Martin, and his shot beat Dean Avery in the Eyemouth goal. Eyemouth came at Craigie again and Weir saved well from Simpson following a goalmouth scramble before the home side twice came close to taking the lead before half time. First Martin shot inches wide with Avery well beaten before Ryan McKenzie’s header was acrobatically cleared off the line by John Buchan. But Craigroyston did take the lead early in the second half when Steven Manson found Gary Georgeson, and although his shot was blocked he did well to set up Anderson who shot past Avery. Eyemouth were unlucky not to level things up when James Wilson’s shot took a deflection and Craig Weir reacted well to make a good low save. Craigie looked for a clinching third goal but were unable to create any clear cut chances due to some good Eyemouth defending. The Fishermen almost equalised again when Alan Speirs’ header went narrowly past before substitute Thiago Ferreira latched on to a slack defensive header, but it wasn’t to be as his lob beat Weir but was a fraction too high and just skimmed over the crossbar. Dignan almost sealed the win in injury time but his shot again rebounded from the woodwork as Craigie held on for a vital three points to keep their hopes of promotion alive and keep Eyemouth sitting second-from-bottom of the First Division. Eyemouth gaffer Carl Hudson expressed his disappointment at the loss, especially with the way his team started the game. “We should have been 2-0 up within 20 minutes,” Hudson insisted. “We were all over them, but we lost our way. Johnny Simpson had been causing problems down the right hand side but we stopped giving him the ball. Their goal was a scrappy one, it was from a free kick and our wall broke. I said to them at half time that we had to get back to playing how we had been at the start. I thought our defence looked fairly solid, Kieran Ainslie and Andrew Hastie looked solid at the back and Alan Speirs had another good game but we were caught again after 10 minutes. The ball came in from a free kick and dropped into the box, we did not deal with it and the lad nipped in and scored.” Hudson made some tactical changes in an effort to level the scores, putting Alan Speirs into the middle of the park and bringing on Thiago Ferreira who went through but hit the woodwork. “We were the better side for 20 minutes but where did we go for the rest of the game?” a frustrated Hudson asked. “I wanted to put the same side out as I did against Whitehill but Jordan Ainslie was injured and Alan Jess went out in the warm up. But that’s not an excuse. I was looking for us to stand up and be counted, and some didn’t really do that.” Eyemouth are in for another difficult game on Saturday when they host Vale of Leithen who are also in with a shout of promotion, and Hudson faces further selection worries with Mark Windram and Johnny Simpson away.