Rossvale 1 St Roch's 2: Nine-man Saints rock Rossvale

A goal deep into stoppage time beat Rossvale in their derby clash with St Roch's at New Huntershill on Saturday.
Rossvale battled hard to breach the St Roch's defence (pic by Helen Templeton)Rossvale battled hard to breach the St Roch's defence (pic by Helen Templeton)
Rossvale battled hard to breach the St Roch's defence (pic by Helen Templeton)

After the previous week’s excellent win over Perthshire, Rossvale started in the right manner, giving the St Roch’s players no time on the ball and putting their players on the back foot.

However that good start was spoiled by a goal for St Roch’s after 11 minutes.

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A corner from the right wasn’t cleared and the ball broke for centre forward Aaron Miller to score from an acute angle inside the six-yard box.

The game was opening up for both sides and on 20 minutes a quick breakaway down the left by Rossvale resulted in a great save by St Roch’s keeper Christopher Treacy from a Gary Giffin shot.

Rossvale continued to pile on the pressure and were unlucky on 30 minutes when a Greg Fernie header went just wide from a Kirk Forbes free kick.

Two minutes later Fernie had another great chance to equalise but his shot was stopped by the keeper at the second attempt.

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However just before the interval St Roch’s showed how dangerous they were on the break when a Kieran Daw shot just went past.

On the hour Rossvale made a couple of changes and within five minutes the game was turned on its head.

On 63 minutes St Roch’s were reduced to 10 men when, after a long ball over the defence, defender Ross Dickson took out Rossvale sub Lee Cryans.

Two minutes later Rossvale finally got their reward when a corner wasn’t cleared properly and the ball was headed over the line by centre-half Charlie Duffy.

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The visitors were then reduced to nine men in the 67th minute after a second booking for Tam Hanlon.

Rossvale continued to pile on the pressure against a resolute St Roch’s defence but were hit with the ultimate sucker punch five minutes into injury time when Darren Maguire played in a lovely pass for Ryan Craig to score the winner.