Championship and League One Cup Quarter-Final

Ochilview Park

26.11.23

Stenhousemuir Women’s Cup run comes to an end as they are defeated by Championship league leaders Rossvale at Ochilview Park.

It was always going to be an uphill task for the Warriors coming up against Rossvale today. Stenhousemuir currently has 13 players out injured which led to the side only having 11 members of their squad available for this fixture. Furthermore, they were coming up against a Rossvale team who are top of the league and unbeaten in the Scottish Women’s Championship this season. And it proved to be a difficult afternoon at Ochilview.

Stenhousemuir found themselves two goals down in the first 10 minutes after quick-fire strikes from Megan Whiteford and Jemma McQuillan. Whiteford found herself one-on-one with the keeper after what looked like a clear foul on Stenhousemuir captain Jude Connolly and buried her first of the match whilst the home team protested. Only two minutes later, Jemma McQuillan struck from just outside of the 18-yard- box and it looped over Emma Meaney to put the visitors two up.

After this, the Warriors managed to settle into the game and create a couple of half-chances for themselves but at the same time were had to deal with a relentless amount of pressure from the Rossvale attack.

Shantel Paterson put her body on the line to stop a strike from bursting the net whilst Jude Connolly made a last-ditch attempt to steer the ball away from the Rossvale forward’s path to keep the score at 2-0 going into half-time.

The second half commenced and Stenhousemuir came out with intent. Eirinn Maguire started to find herself some space on the right-hand side which looked to be a promising opening for the home side as they looked to pull one back.

However, fresh legs seemed to be the catalyst for Rossvale to run away with the game as they scored three goals in five minutes to make it 0-5 just after the hour mark.

Megan Whiteford slotted one in from close range before netting a penalty to seal her hat-trick.

Three minutes later, Emma Meaney brought down Fiona Cullie in the penalty area and she took on the responsibility herself and slid the ball to the bottom right-hand corner.

It was a valiant attempt from the eleven on the field who did not stop battling throughout the game. Notably, Kara Reid was getting stuck in all over the pitch, so Stenhousemuir definitely didn’t take this defeat lying down.

Coaches Jack Cameron and Mark Gilliand will be hoping to have a larger squad available for the next fixture.

Line-ups |

Stenhousemuir | E Meaney, J Connolly ©, R Vickerman, S Montgomery, E Ralston, E Maguire, K Reid, A McLarty, P Adebo, S Paterson, E Eadie

Goals | 

Bookings | McLarty

Rossvale| N Cunningham, A Allan, J O’Toole [K Martin 60’], F Cullie, L Jackson ©, H Newman [A Dunlop 60’], H Troll, J McQuillan [J Gill 54’], M Whiteford [S MacLeod 60’], L Holmes, S Wardlaw

Substitutes not used | S Rhind, L Coleman

Goals | Whiteford [7’] [54’] [57’ P)], McQuillan [9’], Cullie [65’ P]

Bookings | Wardlaw, Holmes

Match report by Adam Khanna