Red Star draw on return to action
Lochgilphead Red Star 1 Port Glasgow OBU 1 SAFL Premier Divison Two
RED STAR welcomed Port Glasgow OBU to the Joint Campus 3G on Saturday and had to rescue a point late on as the Lochgilphead side dropped points at home for the first time this season.
Star were attacking the car park end in the first half against the wind and despite having the majority of possession were struggling to break down a well-drilled OBU defence.
The best chances of the half fell to forwards Kieran Moore and Gregor Peacock, however, a mixture of poor finishing and some good goalkeeping from the OBU stopper thwarted Star’s advances.
As is often the case in matches like this, OBU opened the scoring against the run of play just before half time. Ben Forbes was adjudged to have fouled his man on the far touchline much to the home side’s frustration.
It was from the resulting free kick that the goal came – a long ball into the box was met by the OBU forward who headed past Ben Pollock in goal and put the visitors 1-0 up at the break.
Into the second half and Star tried to increase the tempo and put the OBU backline under pressure, but the Port Glasgow outfit were very difficult to breach as they dropped deeper.
Lee MacLean and Aaron Moore were finding a bit more space in the middle to create but Star let themselves down throughout the afternoon with too many deliveries from wide areas being too close to the ’keeper.
The management team freshened up the side with Cammy MacDonald and Fraser McFarlane going on to try and offer something different in the final third.
The equaliser eventually came with 10 minutes remaining when Kieran Moore broke clear in the left channel. He found Cammy MacDonald, who returned the ball to Moore inside the box and the forward finished low into the corner to salvage a point for Red Star on a frustrating start to 2018.
This Saturday Star will hope to get back to winning ways when they travel to take on Castlemilk.