Gala Fairydean Rovers through to last eight of East of Scotland Qualifying Cup after 3-1 knockout of Luncarty

​Two goals from new striker Jordan Hunter, on loan from Scottish League One side Kelty Hearts until the end of the season. on 18 minutes and 51 and another from captain Danny Galbraith a minute into stoppage time at the end of the tie, with Sean Angus replying on 65, were enough to see off their visitors from Perth and Kinross.

Luncarty are currently second from bottom of the East of Scotland Football League’s premier division and further opposition from that sixth-tier league await Gala in the cup’s last eight in the form of Fife’s Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts, 12th in that 16-team table at the moment.

Saturday’s fourth-round victory was Rovers’ third home tie on the bounce, following wins by 5-1 against Glenrothes in the second round in August and 2-0 versus Preston Athletic in the third in October, and they’re back at Galashiels’ Netherdale Stadium in the next round, on a date yet to be fixed.

The Borderers went out of the qualifying cup at the first time of asking last time round, losing a penalty shootout at Kinnoull in August 2022, after making it all the way to the final of the previous season’s three months before.

Galbraith, 33, is glad to see his team put last term’s early knockout and also the two Scottish Lowland Football League defeats they started 2024 off with, by 7-0 at Edinburgh’s Civil Service Strollers and 2-0 at home to Tranent Juniors, behind them by getting back to winning ways, saying: “It’s been a ropey few weeks, to say the least, so it’s nice to get a win.

“It’s always nice to win but especially so given the fact it’s a competition we want to do well in.

“It’d been a tough couple of weeks for the club but these things happen over the course of a season, I suppose, and you always get a chance to bounce back, so it was an important game for us on Saturday because we want to extend our season by doing well in the cups that we’re left in.

“We’ve got another home draw, which is good, and it’s a chance to get to a semi-final, so we shouldn’t really need any more incentive than that.”

The former Hibernian winger was also pleased to get on the scoresheet alongside Hunter, 19, saying: “It’s always nice even if it was late on, and it was nice to be back involved after having not played for a number of weeks, so to get a goal capped it off.”

Next up for Rovers is a trip to North Lanarkshire this coming Saturday for a league game against Albion Rovers kicking off at 3pm.

The two teams go into that meeting – their second of the season following a 0-0 draw at Netherdale in November – neck and neck in the table, with Gala 14th on 25 points and the other Rovers 15th on 24 but their Coatbridge hosts have six games in hand, having played 18 to the Borderers’ 24.

Looking ahead to that trip, Galbraith added: “It’s going to be a really tough game and it’ll be one we need to be at our best in if we want to get a bit further up the league.

“It’s an opportunity to get ourselves up the league but they’ll be looking at it the exact same way.

“We actually played really, really well in the first half in our last game against them, probably one of the best halves we’ve had all season, and we could have been two or three up, but it was a lot more even in the second half, so they’d perhaps have seen a draw as a fair result.

“Going away from home and playing on a grass pitch at this time of year, it’ll be a completely different game to the first one, though.”