Red Star come up short in close encounter

RED Star travelled to play East Kilbride YM on Saturday February 18 in a close contest which saw the Lochgilphead team’s promotion hopes suffer a blow.

Red Star started the match with a 4-5-1 formation. However, they were forced into an early change when Mark Robertson was forced off after a robust YM challenge left him with a nasty foot injury.

Ben Forbes took his place and Ciaran McPhie joined Kieran Moore up front.

The first half saw both sides cancel each other out as chances were limited at both ends.

Luke Kalache was on hand to make a couple of decent stops as the home side threatened, while Lee MacLean and Luke Naisby went close with efforts at the other end but it remained 0-0 at the break.

The tempo of the match increased in the second half with both sides knowing that a point didn’t really help either side.

The opening goal came for YM after 65 minutes and it was a spectacular strike – the ball fell to their midfielder 30 yards out and he unleashed a stunning effort that found the top corner, leaving Kalache with no chance.

With Star feeling hard done by to be behind, they began to push more bodies forward but despite creating a number of openings found the YM keeper to be in good form.

Aaron Moore thought he had equalised when his lobbed effort looked to be dropping in but the keeper did well to scramble the ball clear and Star couldn’t force the ball over the line.

Kieran Moore was also unlucky when his effort came back off the post after he had beaten three YM defenders.

The referee blew his whistle to end a frustrating afternoon for Red Star, which sees them playing catch up in the race for the second promotion spot.

Tomorrow (Saturday February 25) Red Star travel to play Houston where three league points are essential.