Gala Fairydean Rovers hoping for winning treble versus Stirling students

​That 5-0 semi-final loss at South Lanarkshire’s Calderglen Country Park saw the injury-hit Borderers go out of this year’s Scottish Lowland Football League Cup, dashing hopes of following up last March’s East of Scotland Cup win by securing silverware for two seasons running.

Their hosts will now go on to play Tranent Juniors in the final on Sunday, April 7, at a venue yet to be confirmed.

On the scoresheet for the runaway Scottish Lowland Football League table-toppers in midweek were Keir Samson on ten minutes, Tiwi Daramola in first-half stoppage time, John Robertson just ahead of the hour mark, Adam McGowan on 77 minutes and Nathan Flanagan on 80.

This week’s cup exit followed a 7-2 loss to Broomhill at home in the league on Saturday.

Josh Jack and Corey O’Donnell scored at the double for Broomhill in Galashiels at the weekend, the former on 15 minutes and 43 and the latter on 33 and 49. with Scott Roberts also on target just ahead of half-time, Ross Smith on 56 minutes and Max Wright on 82.

On target for Rovers were Sam Nicolson on 61 minutes and Che Reilly on 72.

Saturday’s match also saw home defender Ciaran Greene sustain a fractured left ankle early on, an injury set to rule him out for the rest of this season.

The dozen goals conceded by Gala in the space of those four days takes the number scored against them since their last clean sheet – a 2-0 win at home to Stirling University in the league cup on Tuesday, February 20 – to 22 in five fixtures.

The Stirling students are their next opponents, though, so they’ll be hoping for a winning treble, having also beaten them by 2-0 at home in the league in September, to get their season back on track.

Manager Martin Scott’s side go into that away-day sitting third from bottom of the table, with 28 points from 30 fixtures, eight league places and 15 points worse off than their hosts.

Kick-off at Stirling’s Forthbank Stadium is at 3pm.