GREENOCK Wanderers secured their second victory of the season in their BT National League Second Division match against Ardrossan Academicals at Memorial Field on Saturday.

For Wanderers it was a marvellous achievement and not only did they accomplish their second win of the campaign but they laid to rest a 13-year hoodoo against their west coast rivals, stretching back to January 2001.

It was a tense but entertaining game and both sides deserve much credit for producing an exciting spectacle, especially the hosts who limped into the match minus a significant number of recognised first-team players.

Despite that they gave a battling display and pushed Wanderers all the way.

Greenock were well served by their entire squad but returning Glasgow Hawks centre Brendan McGroarty, Leigh Tyley, Callum Harrison, Andy McDougall, Matt Gray and impact replacement Martin Lavelle all stood out and deserve special mention.

Wanderers started off brightly and established an early lead.

On 13 minutes good solid scrum ball was fed wide and a searing Tyley break through the centre proved decisive and he drew his man before releasing Harrison to breeze in under the posts.

Stand-off Kenny Diffenthal, pictured, converted and 10 minutes later the Wanderers goal-kicker stretched the lead to 10-0 when he slotted a simple penalty effort from 22 metres out.

The locals continued in the ascendancy but on the half-hour mark the hosts engineered a break-out through central midfield and carried play deep into Wanderers’ territory.

They recycled possession quickly on several occasions and, with the Greenock defence stretched, centre Nathan Welsh crashed over for the touchdown. Stand-off Allan Wilson’s conversion reduced the deficit to 10-7.

The ‘west-enders’ reacted positively and from quality lineout ball delivered off the top from skipper Murray MacDonald, scrum-half McDougall spread the play.

McGroarty made a trademark burst through the centre and his offload to Tyley gave the full-back an easy chance to dot down under the posts. Diffenthal’s conversion was a formality.

On the stroke of half-time though winger Martin Grant finished off a fine backs move from the hosts to reduce Wanderers’ advantage to 17-12.

On 62 minutes Wanderers got a rude awakening when more crisp back play resulted in winger John Young squeezing in at the corner and Wilson’s accurate conversion seized the lead for the Ayrshire men for the first time in the match by 19-17.

The final 10 minutes saw the penalty count rise and the lead ‘see-saw’ between the sides as the game was effectively reduced to a kicking contest with the goal-kickers very much to the fore.

On 70 minutes Diffenthal edged Wanderers in front from the tee only for Wilson to restore a 22-20 lead for Ardrossan on 76 minutes with another unerring strike from a drop-goal.

The seminal moment came though two minutes later when Diffenthal once more stepped forward, kept his cool and converted from 40 metres out to win the game for Wanderers.

Wanderers are sponsored by Texas Instruments.