Blackburn United 1 (Garrad 87mins)
Linlithgow Rose 2 (Docherty 4mins, Stowe 83mins)
United continued an unwanted trend of losing early goals when a corner from the right caused a degree of panic in the centre of the six yard box and when the ball couldn’t be adequately cleared and spun towards DOCHERTY he had the simplest of tasks to clip it past an unsighted Craig Saunders. Despite Rose piling on the pressure and moving the ball quickly in search of a second goal it was Blackburn who came closest next, Dominic Kane firing a twenty yarder just past the right hand post before a back post cross picked out Marcus Millar to head down to the feet of Calum Heath but his shot was saved by Shaw at the bottom right hand corner. Linlithgow, though, were clever and lively and Sneddon set-up Docherty for a snap shot the crept narrowly past.
Seven minutes after the resumption a Heath free-kick found the chest of John Drummond but when the ball dropped invitingly for Laurie Devine he could only hook it over the top. At the other end Stowe hit the right hand byeline and cut an inviting ball back into the path of Sneddon but his shot was saved by the feet of Saunders before the same player had a pop from the angle of the box that flew over. With just under twenty minutes remaining a speculative ball over the top found Jack Garrad running onto it at the edge of the Rose area but he was sent flying by an ill-timed thrash at the ball by Shaw, who had rushed from his line, that instead caught the United players ankles and referee Mr. Calder had little option to brandish the red card at the Linlithgow No.1. Blackburn couldn’t make anything from the resultant free-kick though and, despite the mad disadvantage, it was the Prestonfield men who scored again, substitute Tommy Coyne robbing young Jack Sayers of the ball and threading a perfectly weighted pass through to STOWE who made no mistake in picking his spot behind Saunders. However, United were still causing problems and when Saunders long clearance was quickly controlled on the chest of GARRAD the young Hamilton Accies loanee was alert enough to see McMinn had advanced a few yards from his line and brilliantly lobbed him from all of forty yards. Right on time Blackburn had the ball in the net again when Howe’s pin-point cross was expertly thumped home by Richie Hutton but the near side linesman had adjudged him to have strayed marginally offside.
Blackburn United line-up: Saunders, Sayers, Millar, Mildren, Drummond, Kane (Howe 66), Heath (Smith 81), Meikle, Garrad, Devine (Sweeney 75), Hutton subs (not used): Baillie, Ferris, McClung, Clements
Linlithgow Rose line-up: Shaw, Thomson, Thom, Stowe, Docherty, McKenzie, Hare, Ogilvie, McMullan, Bremner, Sneddon Subs: McMinn, Lawrie, Coyne, Dublin-Green, Allan
Referee: Mr. George Calder
Assistants: Mr. Calum Doyle & Mr. Gianluca Marini