Clydebank 7
Rossvale Acad 0
Friendly

Match Report

This friendly match against Rossvale Academy turned out to be a huge mis-match and ended up to be no more than a glorified training session. It was costly as well with Oisin McHugh pulling up with an injured hamstring just nine minutes into the game, but more damaging was the straight red card given to Matt Niven, for “head butting” a Rossvale player in retaliation to a poor tackle.

Make no mistake, he deserved to be sent off, but as with Nicky Little against Nairn Co, we are likely to see a couple of games suspension being handed out.

The main takeaway from the game was that the Bankies “cannae shoot for toffee”. Rossvale were essentially a youth team, and seven may look like a respectable scoreline on the face of it, but they could and should have scored double. Some of the misses were verging on the ridiculous.

For the record, the goals were a Nicky Little penalty after seven minutes after he had been shoved in the box.

The second was a Liam McGonigle header from an Adam Hodge cross , and the third came from a Matt Niven loopy headed effort which the goalkeeper – who played well – punched into the roof of the net under pressure.

Nicky Little scored his hat trick early in the second half with two quick fire goals, both coming from Rossvale being dispossessed deep in their own half. The first was a dinked lob shot and the second a well placed side footer.

Liam McGonigle then made a complete mess of a penalty kick just after the hour after Josh Weir was brought down. He didn’t even hit the target which was par for the course for the day.

McKinlay got number six when he tapped into an open goal after Gallacher had drawn the keeper from his line.

Niven’s retaliatory red card came with 12 minutes to go, and the free kick that followed led to goal number seven. The keeper spilled McKinlay’s shot, and Josh Weir rammed in the rebound to complete the scoring.

The Bankies host Bonnyton Thistle in the Scottish Cup next week, and we can expect them to sit in and try and hit on the break. They will provide a more robust defence, so the players will need to see if they can find their shooting boots because they didn’t have them with them today.

Match report written by Stuart McBay