Penalty earns point for Gala Fairydean Rovers against Hearts’ colts ahead of trip to Celtic B

​The Scottish Premiership colts had taken six points from their previous two games this campaign, with their hosts having won one, against East Stirlingshire, and lost one, at Bo’ness United, and the Edinburgh outfit looked to be on track for a hat-trick of victories after going in front just ahead of the hour mark and taking that lead into the last ten minutes of the weekend’s match at Netherdale in Galashiels.

Hearts’ under-21s had an own goal to thank for that lead, a Bobby McLuckie corner having been deflected into his own net past goalkeeper Jay Cantley by defender Ciaran Greene.

Gala’s fightback yielded the goal it merited on 82 minutes, Galbraith beating visiting goalkeeper Liam McFarlane from the spot after the visitors were penalised for a foul by Luke Rathie on one of their hosts’ trialists, but their scorer felt all three points would have been a fairer return than the one they had to make do with.

“It was a decent point in the end after going 1-0 down,” said the winger.

“The way we rallied was really pleasing – I think we seemed to get better after we went a goal down – but I thought we’d been really unlucky to concede, given the nature of the goal, so I must admit I was a wee bit disappointed that we didn’t take all three points, to be honest. Overall, though, it probably was decent point.”

Manager Martin Scott’s side’s fightback for a point on Saturday continues their recovery from their 3-0 opening-day loss at Bo’ness and Galbraith believes that’s them now hitting their stride.

“Obviously that first game was a major disappointment. We let ourselves down and never really gave a true reflection of ourselves,” said Galbraith, 32.

“It was certainly not the start we expected or wanted, so there was probably a bit more pressure on us for the two games thereafter.

“To have taken four points from them instead of six is a little bit disappointing, but in terms of our performances, I don’t think we could have asked for much more.”

Next up for Rovers is a trip to Airdrie’s Excelsior Stadium this coming Saturday to play the league’s other colts, Celtic B, with kick-off at 3pm, and they go into that game sitting tenth in the table but level on four points with their eighth-placed hosts.

Honours were even between the two teams last season, Gala winning 4-2 away in January after losing 4-3 at home in October, and Galbraith is looking forward to going up against the Old Firm giants’ youngsters again, saying: “These games are different to the majority of games we play.

“They’re different types of team in terms of the way they play and they’re the type of games we always seem to adapt well to.

“No doubt it’ll be a really difficult game again and – like last season, as with Hearts and Rangers – we know they’ve got some really good players.

“We’re fully aware that, like on Saturday, we’ll have to be really on our game to take anything from it.”