Gala Fairydean Rovers 0

BSC Glasgow 3

David Knox

at Netherdale

FURIOUS Fairydean Rovers manager Neil Hastings hit out at his sluggish-starting team on Saturday.

Gala fell behind to two quick-fire goals from the impressive BSC Glasgow – and never really recovered.

The manager told us: “It was hugely disappointing.

“You can’t give teams like BSC a start of two goals like that.

“BSC are a good team but we made it easy for them – three crosses that weren’t dealt with and they score three goals.

“We didn’t give ourselves a chance to get something from the game after that start.”

Having been held to an energy-sapping draw on Wednesday evening by East Kilbride, hopes of a weary BSC arriving at Netherdale were quickly dashed.

Stephen Swift’s team soaked up some early pressure before striking with two counter attacks inside the opening quarter of an hour.

Declan Hughes dinked a clever freekick into the path of Michael Anderson, who produced an inch-perfect cross for Thomas Collins to score from close-range.

Just four minutes later Davie McKay raced down the opposite flank to cross for Tom Orr to steer the ball beyond Fraser Morton from a similar unmarked position.

Only good fortune prevented Gala going further behind as Orr again found too much room inside the area in the 21st minute to connect with a cross, but his header flashed past the far upright.

While the makeshift home defence struggled to keep tabs on the BSC strikers, they were given a masterclass on the half hour at the other end.

Some neat interplay led to Zander Murray collecting a pass inside the area, but Ross Smith instantly closed the striker down to prevent a shot on target.

And when Murray did escape the attentions of the centre-halves to latch onto a terrific Niall Kelly pass just before the interval, he was denied by the feet of keeper Ryan Marshall.

Only a terrific save from Morton at the start of the second half, to push away Jamie Hamilton’s angled shot, kept the Fairydean Rovers in the game.

But the title challengers didn’t have to wait long for the third.

A deep corner on 56 minutes was played back across the area by Collins for Orr to steer the ball into the net from six yards out.

Gala continued to show plenty of energy but, apart from a powerful drive from Phil Addison which rifled past the post, they couldn’t carve out any clear late chances against a well-drilled defence.

Gala Fairydean Rovers: F Morton, L Kinchant, A Chingwalu, D Leddie, D Bonnar (R Mayer 78), S Taylor Mackenzie, Y Galantes (Y Mendes 64), N Kelly, A Murray, D Galbraith & M Berry (P Addison 61).