Rossvale win again as Celtic star's brother sees red for abusing linesman

St Roch's keeper Aaron Griffiths was red-carded during Saturday's derby at Rossvale (pic by HT Photography/@dibsy_)

Vale went into the match undefeated in their opening six Championship matches, but St Roch’s started off well and possibly shaded the first half overall.

But Gordon Moffat’s side picked their game up after the break to secure the points.

Vale’s first threat came in the 14th minute when Craig Buchanan found Jamie Hunter whose header into the path of Chris Zok was stopped by Griffiths as he came off his line to intercept the cross.

The visitors should have gone ahead four minutes later when Peter Bradley was adjudged to have fouled Ryan McManus at the edge of the box but Jamie Donnelly came to ‘Vale’s rescue by brilliantly saving the resulting penalty.

Liam McGonigle was testing the Candy Rock defence with every run and was unlucky to see a shot narrowly go over.

At the other end McManus brought out another excellent save from Donnelly, but it was Vale who struck first when captain Jamie Hunter beat the offside trap from a long through ball and chipped Griffiths.

St Roch’s levelled a few minutes later. McManus threaded an excellent pass through to new signing Eddie Ferns and the former Clyde man curled his shot past the diving Donnelly.

Whatever boss Moffat said to his team at half-time worked as Vale went back into the lead within five minutes of the restart.

After an excellent run down the right McGonigle found Zok at the back post and the Vale striker nearly burst the net with his finish.

McGonigle was unlucky not to put Rossvale further ahead when took a short free-kick from Kirk Forbes and burst into the box, but his first shot came back off Griffiths’ chest and his rebound effort sailed over.

Play then became scrappy and the visitors were reduced to 10 men when Griffiths was shown a straight red for comments to a linesman.

One of the outfield players had to take over in goal as Roch had no reserve keeper due to their other two keepers being sent off in previous weeks.

That gave McGonigle and Gary Giffin the chance to test the defence even more now and the former scored after a great build up by most of the team to seal the win.