Gala Fairydean Rovers hoping league losses will spur them on to cup win against Linlithgow Rose

​Rovers lost this campaign’s Scottish Lowland Football League fixtures against Rose by 5-0 away in August and by 6-1 in Galashiels in December and Galbraith expects to see a reaction to those hidings this coming Saturday.

The Borderers have been drawn against manager Gordon Herd’s Rose side in the Scottish Lowland Football League Cup’s first round at home at Netherdale Stadium, with kick-off at 3pm, and that’s an opportunity to make amends, according to the 33-year-old.

Their fortunes against Linlithgow in cup ties of late have been mixed, having lost 2022’s East of Scotland Qualifying Cup final to them by 3-1 but then made up for that disappointment by beating them 4-2 in a penalty shootout after drawing 2-2 in last March’s East of Scotland Cup final.

That cup win was their first in their current incarnation and it’s given them a taste of silverware success they now want to experience again, but to do that, they’ll have to be at the top of their game against a team eight places and nine points better off than them in the league, warns Galbraith.

“We’re looking forward to it but it’ll be a tough game,” he said. “They got the better of us in the two games we’ve played in the league but Saturday’s a good opportunity in a one-off game to put that right and hopefully it’ll go in our favour.

“There’s definitely been a bit of build-up since we won that final because the way they celebrated last time they beat us in the league, it obviously still rankles with them that the penalties went against them the season before.

“It’s nice that there’s perhaps a wee bit of added edge.

“They’ve got the better of us twice since so that should give us motivation to try to put on a decent performance at the weekend. It definitely should do.

“We performed poorly in those two games. We were down to the bare bones in the first game and the second one was pretty similar, but that’s no excuse. At the end of the day, they were by far the superior team on both occasions.

“That really should get us going to make sure that we put in a better performance than we did in those previous two games.”

This weekend’s cup tie follows a 3-0 defeat away to Albion Rovers on Saturday gone for player-manager Martin Scott’s Gala team, with Niya Joseph scoring twice for the Coatbridge outfit and Adam Fernie netting their other.