Glory for Red Star in tense Mid Argyll derby
Lochgilphead Red Star 2 Tarbert 0 Hall Cup Group Stage - Section A
NEIGHBOURING rivals Lochgilphead Red Star and Tarbert AFC played out a tense Hall Cup tie, with the home side running out deserved winners.
As Ropework park was waterlogged, the match was played at the Lochgilphead Joint Campus 3G which meant both sides were keen to exploit the slick surface for a quick passing game.
In typical derby fashion, the match started at a ferocious tempo with no shortage of hard tackles. Referee Gordon Kelso reached for his card no fewer than three times in the opening five minutes.
Tackle
Tarbert’s Iain Johnson went into the book for a late tackle early on and was followed by Red Star’s Aaron Moore and Lee MacLean.
The first major chance of the match fell to Colin Weir when he latched onto a square ball from Ciaran McPhie. He took his shot first time but saw it well-saved by Billy Hawthorn in the Tarbert goal.
Red Star began to settle as the first half wore on and clever runs by Kieran Moore and Rab Docherty were causing Tarbert problems.
The Star team were guilty of forcing the play a bit too much which allowed the Tarbert defensive pair of Fraser Talbot and Craig Johnstone to clear their lines.
Free kick
The Dookers’ best opportunity to open the scoring in the first half came from a free kick on the edge of the area, but Alan Blair’s effort was well-blocked by Luke Naisby on the edge of the Star wall.
The hosts finally got the breakthrough after half an hour.
As Tarbert tried to clear their lines, the ball was nicked by Colin Weir who threaded a through pass into the path of Kieran Moore who picked the ball up on the left channel before heading towards goal and placing his shot just past Billy Hawthorne to make the score 1-0 at half time.
In the second half the match was becoming a bit scrappy with Star struggling a bit for fluency in their play despite looking the more likely to score. Kieran and Aaron Moore combined well, linking up through the midfield and Aaron got a shot away but it was once again saved by Billy Hawthorn who continued to excel between the posts.
It took until the 65th minute for Star to put the game to bed and it was Kieran Moore again who netted after being released by another excellent through ball, this time from Innes Meikle who had come on in place of Docherty up front.
Meikle’s through pass beat the defence and Moore had the pace to get in behind and slot home to put his side 2-0 up.
Unfortunately for the Star youngster his day would end on a sour note when he was shown a second yellow card after he was adjudged to have dived looking for a penalty when the keeper was at full stretch. Star could have few complaints, however, and were forced to see the last 15 minutes out with ten men.
To their credit Tarbert didn’t give up and continued to try and press for a way back into the game but the Red Star back four of Andy Weir, Luke Naisby, Kyle Selfridge and Connor Crawford dealt with any attacks comfortably and Star were happy to end the game 2-0 victors.
Sporting
The match was played in a competitive but sporting manner throughout with both sides fielding a number of derby debutants.
Red Star travel to play Arkleston tomorrow (Saturday) in their second group game of the Hall Cup.