Roselea pay the penalty after late equaliser

Roselea headed to North End Park Dundee for the third round tie against old foes North End.

The clubs were rivals when Roselea were still in the old Tayside leagues and the last time they met was as recently as 2019 in the quarter-finals of the same competition at Broomfield Park.

On that occasion Roselea fell to a 3-1 loss having gone down 3-0 in the first 18 minutes.

The game erupted in 14 minutes when out of the blue Calum Watson was red carded for an off the ball incident.

It was not clear what happened but a North End player collapsed holding his face and the referee saw enough to show the red card. Roselea’s tough challenge was about to become even harder.

Roselea had an excellent chance in 22 minutes when Soutar went on a strong run before passing to Garnham in the box but the ball bobbled as he went to pass it into the net and his shot went wide of the post.

North End then had a chance with the skilful Devine cutting in and hitting the side netting

Roselea’s ten men were holding out well and only a long range effort from Farquharson which went over the top and a shot which McCormack held well were all North End could muster with the ball running away from them at times.

North End came out against the wind and took the game to Roselea early in the second half.

They were rewarded in the 49th minute when they scored following a short corner when Montgommery scooped the ball home at the near post, however, there was a doubt if the ball had actually crossed the line.

Roselea had a good spell of pressure and Soutar had a couple of free kicks which just went over the bar.

Thomson replaced Beedie on the hour mark as Roselea looked to get back into the game.

Alberts replaced Garnham who had been terrorising the home defence but had previously tweaked his hamstring.

Roselea got a deserved equaliser in 85 minutes which came out of nothing.

A clearance fell at Murray Soutar’s left foot and from all of 40 yards hit a screamer over the North End keeper who was well off his line.

In the aftermath the home keeper became too involved with the Roselea joy and received a second yellow card for throwing the ball at Greig meaning an outfield player had to take over in goal

Roselea could not trouble the replacement keeper enough to force a winner and the tie was to be decided on penalty kicks.

Roselea were dispappointed to lose on penalties with McCormcack unlucky to dive the wrong way on each occasion and North Ends keeper was unlucky not to save one or two of the Roselea kicks having guessed the correct way.

Thomson, Mitchell, Alberts and Greig all converted for Roselea with the unfortunate Stephen sending his kick over the bar and sent the North End team into the next round.

Roselea are again in cup action on Saturday when they travel to Sunnybank in the last 16 of the North Regional Cup with a 2pm kick-off at Heatheryfold.