Honours even at Ainslie Park

Goals from Ross Gray and Lee Currie put Rose in control of the game at Ainslie Park, but a change of shape and personnel paid off for The Spartans to fight back for a share of the points.

A decent and noisy crowd - aided and abetted by the respective sides' young teams - was in attendance to watch the SPFL's newest sides face each other at this level for the first time. The opening quarter of an hour saw Rose see and retain a lot of the ball, with the home side comfortable for them to have it. Strikes from Peggie and Mailer failed to hit their intended target with keeper Heraghty untroubled. The pace and energy of the front three of Watson, Gray and new signing Buchanan were giving the Spartans' backline issues as they weren't given any time to settle on the ball and play out from the back, and it was down to this good work that yielded the opening goal. A pass back to Heraghty by Waugh was followed in by Gray and with the Spartans' stopper under pressure, stumbled and presented the ball to him. Gray took a second or two to compose himself before lofting the ball over the flailing keeper to put Rose ahead on 23 minutes. Four minutes later the Spartans were screaming for an opportunity to level proceedings as they deemed a handball in the Rose box by Grigor was worthy of a spot kick. Daniel Graves didn't however and waved on play to continue. Gray almost doubled his tally and the Rose lead on 35 minutes but his sliding effort was well saved by Heraghty. The home side were going long to try and get balls over the top for their strikers to latch on to and there were a couple of aerial duels in the Rose box to contend with as a result of long throws but these were dealt with by the Rose defence and the keeper as the half ended, with Rose the better side over the opening period.

The weather took a turn for the worse as the second half started and so too it appeared at the time at least, the North Edinburgh side's chances of taking anything from the game. Gray was fouled by Tapping a few yards outside the Spartans' box which earned the big centre half the first caution of the match. In a central position it was in Lee Currie territory and the dead ball specialist placed a magnificent free kick into the top right corner of Heraghty's net on 53 minutes to double Rose's lead. After attempts by Buchanan which went wide and a McGale effort which stung the palms of Heraghy, Spartans manager Dougie Samuel had seen enough and made a couple of attacking substitutions, with ex Rose forward Brown and Denholm replacing Tapping and Morrison just after the hour mark. This was to pay dividends just four minutes later as after the ball failed to be cleared to safety, it fell to Brown whose cross into the box was met by the outstretched leg of Armstrong and with it a goal back for the home side. Corners taken by the aforementioned Armstrong were causing the Rose rearguard problems and just ten minutes after their opening goal, the game was all square as a result of one of these. An Armstrong corner was punched away by Martin but the ball stayed aerial, and after a couple of headers it was finally met by the head of Russell for the equaliser. The home side were inches away from taking all three points in time added on as a cross swung in by Craigen into the Rose box was met by the sliding boot of Whyte but his strike just went wide of Martin's right post.

As the full time whistle blew it felt more like two points dropped than one point gained after being in control of the game for the first hour; arguably displaying the best performance of the season so far, but some uncharacteristic indecisive defending allowed the home side a lifeline which they duly took. Looking at the positives it is another point on the board with the first quarter of the season drawing to a close next week and the unbeaten record at Ainslie Park and vs The Spartans is maintained, as is the excellent record of playing on artificial pitches where the Rose have been defeated only once in all competitions since achieving SPFL status.

The Rose are back on home soil next Saturday as we host East Fife, where with the backing of the Faithful will look to maintain the good start to the season.

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