FOR THE second time this season, Killie frustrated Falkirk on their own patch and this time put a dent in the home side’s aspirations of finishing in the top half of the SPL.
Over the piece a draw was just about right, although Alan Combe was the busier of the two goalkeepers and emerged from the game as Killie’s man of the match.
Falkirk crafted the first opening through Gerard Aafjes on 11 minutes when his shot rebounded back to him off a Killie defender’s boot.
He slid the ball to striker Carl Finnigan who hit a delightful curler towards goal, only to see Combe pull off a tremendous diving save to deny him the opener.
Combe came to the rescue again from the resultant corner, this time standing tall to block a close-in shot from Kenny Milne.
Killie, fielding an unchanged side from the previous week’s win over Inverness, threatened the home goal on 20 minutes, following good link-up play between David Fernandez and Mehdi Taouil.
The latter slid the ball to Danny Invincibile, but Aafjes got in the way to block the Aussie striker’s effort.
Falkirk created another opportunity to open the scoring just before the break, but Darren Barr’s weak header from Kevin McBride’s cross went tamely wide.
Manager John Hughes introduced striker Pedro Moutinho on the restart, and he took only five minutes to make an impression, firing in a low shot that brought another good stop from Combe.
Craig Bryson produced one of his trademark runs from deep that ended with a shot, but it failed to hit the target.
And then the Bairns were back in the Killie half, with Scott Arfield again being thwarted by Combe.
On 72 minutes, Finnigan was on target with a header from Tam Scobie’s left-wing cross, but his header was easy meat for the Killie goalkeeper.
Bryson again looked the player most likely to come to Killie’s rescue, but he just couldn’t get his shot on target.
Then David Lilley left his defensive beat to join the attack, but his header flew over Robert Olejnik’s crossbar.
As the game dragged on to the final whistle, Bryson almost set up a late winner for Killie, but Olejnik was alert and pounced to cut out the pass with Invincibile waiting to strike.
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