Rosyth Juniors 3-3 Armadale Thistle
East Region Premier League South
Fleet Grounds, Rosyth, Fife
Tom Hampton's hat-trick snatched a valuable point for 10-man Rosyth in their battle at the foot of the Premier League South. But the Fifers needed a late penalty to rescue the draw after McMillan's red-card in a match the swung back and forth.
Hampton opened the scoring in just the third minute, but the early minutes were dominated by a nasty looking injury to Dale striker Hay, who was stretchered off in just the 11th minute.
The Fleet Grounds is a tight wee park and there wasn't much space for either team to get the ball down and play. The low sun didn't help the visitors either, and it took Thistle a while to get going. Leiper grabbed the equaliser on the half hour mark and Thistle began to enjoy a decent spell of possession. It paid off 10 minutes later, when Allison got on the end of a cross into the 6-yard box to head home and finish off a fine team move.
It had been a tight first half, with neither side really dominating, both only managing three shots on goal between them in the whole 45. The second half kick-off was delayed briefly as a member of the public had to be escorted from the pitch - somebody obviously celebrating the end of dry-January a little too much.
Rosyth started the second half the same way the had started the first, Hampton's nonchalant back-heel flick just enough to beat Swinburn and trundle into the corner of the net.
There are seven league places and 10 points between these two sides and Thistle always looked like they had that little bit more quality. But Rosyth were digging deep and the away side just couldn't seem to kill the hosts off.
As the hour mark came & went, the game began to get a bit more feisty as the tackles started flying in and the ref had to get busy with his yellow card. It wasn't exactly a dirty game, more niggly and bad tempered and a handful of players from each side found their names in the notebook. McMillan pushed his luck just a bit too far and got a second yellow for dissent, leaving Rosyth to play the last 12 minutes with 10 men.
It looked like that might have cost them the game when Slessor fired his shot into the net just 5 minutes from time to give Dale the lead. But Rosyth had looked dangerous on the counter attack all afternoon and with the game heading into stoppage time, Hampton beat the off-side trap only to be barged over in the box. The striker took the spot-kick himself, completing his hat-trick and saving a point with virtually the last kick of the ball.
The draw was probably better for Rosyth and with only 3 point covering 5th to 10th in the table, every point counts. Armadale will look at it is two points dropped and a chance lost to close ground on leaders Pumpherston.
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