The Rovers hosted the early morning kick off vs Crosslands at Huntly Park on a cracking Saturday morning, unfortunately the weather and surface were much better than the quality of football demonstrated by both sides.
Rovers started the game at a slow pace after a disjointed warm up however, made the 1st clear cut chance of the game with Frank Coia putting the ball past the keepers right hand post from the edge of the box after some good attacking play up the left wing. Crosslands were aggressive all over the pitch and on 20 minutes an extremely dangerous tackle was made on David Clancy on the right touchline resulting in the Crosslands number 6 picking up a yellow card. He was very lucky not to see Red, the Crosslands management Latter substituted their number 6 as he made a number of poorly timed and dangerous tackles in the 1st half and it was only a matter of time before he would see Red.
Crosslands were putting the Rovers back 4 under lots of pressure with some direct balls into their strikers and good supported by their midfield runners, the rovers midfield had no shape with Frank Coia playing like a 3rd striker making their attacks far too easy. A combination of good defensive tackling form both fullbacks Chris Conway and Kevin Donaghy and some good clearing headers from Iain MacGregor and Stuart Conway at centre half. The Rovers struggled to get any momentum or pattern to their play, the same mistakes were made from the last home match trying to play long searching balls in strikers too early and a real lack of good possession and build up play. When the direct approach did find a GRFC striker there was too much of a gap between the back 4 midfield 4 and the strikers to build on the yardage gained.
On 45 minutes Carlo Santi tangled with a Crosslands midfielder resulting in Santi getting kicked up in the air! The ref had no option but to show the Crosslands hothead a Red card, Santi receiving a yellow for his part in the incident. Unfortunately Rovers could not make the extra man count in the second half, Crosslands changed to a 432 and the Rovers were not using the ball well anywhere in the pitch and try and get the ball quickly into the wide areas or switching the play quick enough to cause the Crosslands midfield and defence problems, if anything Crosslands had the better opportunities leading into the final 20 minutes with lots of long balls into their 2 strikers.
Tait made some changes going to a 433 later in the second half. Liam Donaghy was moved to left back, Paul Gallagher came into the heart of defence to replace injury stricken Stuart Conway and Stuart Mauchan and trialist Tommy MacIntyre were added up front to try and push for a goal and manufacture more attacking play in the wide areas. The aim was to match up the midfield 3 and give us more attacking options in the wide areas however, Crosslands were dogged and resolute and the changes did not have the desired effect on the game.
In the dying minutes of the game Crosslands forced a corner and capitalised on a handling error from Stand in keeper Sandy Christie who up to that point had an excellent game in goal. The ball was whipped into the keeper with pace and Crosslands flooded the Penalty area to get the goal.
Very disappointing performance and result for the rovers.
The game finished GRFC 0-1 Crosslands.
