Cove Rangers 2 Alloa Athletic 3 

ALLOA booked a place in the Championship playoffs on Saturday, snatching three points at the death from Cove Rangers.

The Wasps secured their spot and guaranteed third place in a five-goal thriller in Aberdeen.

Andy Graham made just one change from the goalless draw with Montrose the week before – Conor Sammon dropping to the bench and Luke Donnelly coming in as the attacking midfielder.

Alloa got on the front foot from the first whistle and looked to be a menace to Cove’s Nick Suman.

They found their breakthrough as Ethan Sutherland’s corner kick was thumped in by Miko Virtanen, putting the Wasps ahead in the crunch clash.

The visitors could have been ahead by more at the break, Taylor Steven had a superb shot from range tipped over the bar by Suman, while Bobby Wales also had an effort blocked.

Alloa extended their lead as the second half commenced – Wales and Steven combining very well up front, Steven sent his cross in to the Kilmarnock loanee at the back post, who fired it past Suman to double his side’s lead at Balmoral Stadium.

It looked like they were on easy street but panic must have set in as Cove needed just four minutes to draw level, Mitch Megginson and Rumarn Burrell putting two quickfire efforts past Alloa’s defence.

The home side could have had more goals to their name had it not been for some stellar work from PJ Morrison, who had quick reactions to deny Burrell from close range.

Morrison followed it up with another huge save, tipping over a powerful strike from Kyle Connell.

For the final 15 minutes, Alloa wrestled back control of the match, with traffic only going towards Suman’s goal.

They earned their reward with Sutherland’s cross finding Wales at the back post, who headed home the third to book his side a spot in the playoffs and spark jubilant celebrations.

“It’s a really good result,” Graham said. “That’s the first part of the job done, we’ve got ourselves into the playoffs.

“Now it’s down to the group to make sure we get ready for them and give it our best shot which is what we’ve done all season.

“We go into every single game with that thought process – give it everything you’ve got and see where it takes you for the 90 minutes.

“Today was no different and the playoffs will be no different.”

On a day of high marks for the whole Alloa side, there were many standout figures.

Bobby Wales continued his extraordinary goalscoring run, firing in his 11th and 12th goals of the season.

Miko Virtanen scored his first goal for the club, leaving it until the business end of the season to get his first, but this goal gave Alloa a strong foothold in the first half.

St Mirren loanee Ethan Sutherland had his best game in Alloa colours against Cove, providing vital assists for Virtanen and Wales and was also solid defensively.

Graham continued: “I don’t like singling out individuals but I thought Ethan was excellent in the first half.

“I thought his decision making was really good – don’t get me wrong, I thought him and the rest of the team, for a spell of 15, 20 minutes in the second half didn’t have a good performance.

“They started making poor decisions but you have to credit the resolve, not just in Ethan but in all of them.

“When you go from 2-0 to 2-2, the easy thing to do is to lose the game and be the plucky loser but we didn’t.

“During the last 15, 20 minutes, we really stepped up to the plate and Ethan puts in a great delivery for Bobby to score the winner.

“I thought it was what we deserved, we’d had a couple of big chances – Steven Buchanan has one that’s been blocked on the line, Stefan Scougall had one that the defender has made a good block.

“We were the team on the ascendancy and for a team that was 2-0 up and pegged back to 2-2, that says a lot about the character and it was great for me to see it.”

Alloa now have two league games against Hamilton and Falkirk left to see out the campaign.

From then, it is all eyes on the playoffs, with this result guaranteeing the Wasps will face off against Hamilton over two legs in the semi final.