NEWTON STEWART 3 HESTON ROVERS 3

John McNaught reporting from Blairmount Park

Pre-match it was expected that this first league game of the new season could go either way and thats exactly what happened with the sides sharing six goals and the points.

The first exchanges were fairly even but with eight minutes played the visitors almost took the lead when Hestons best player on the day, Ryan Adamson saw an angular shot come back off the post with Newton keeper Dale Leith well beaten.  With play flowing from end to end, in the eighteenth minute Heston were awarded a free kick twenty five yards out which was taken by Steven Millar who lashed it high into the postage stamp corner of the Newton goal to open the scoring. 

Seven minutes later Newton levelled the match with a Steven Beggs twenty two yard free kick which took a slight deflection of a defender to send it well beyond keeper Allan Gordon in the Heston goals. Eight minutes before the interval Newton took the lead when following some good work by Sean Taylor the ball fell kindly for striker Calum Dunn who made no mistake from ten yards out to send the teams in at the break with Newton holding a slender one goal advantage.

Three minutes into the second half the game was all level once again after keeper Leith had made a fine one handed save to palm a goal bound shot from Adamson over the crossbar.  The equalising goal came from the resultant corner when central defender Ryan McGee rose high above the Newton defence to head into the net.  Both sides created chances but the defences were holding firm until the hour mark when Adamson went on a great solo run to make space to crash the ball home for Hestons third goal.  Newton may have been down but certainly not out at this point and kept up their raids on the Heston goal and with sixty seven minutes played they were rewarded.  They were awarded  another free kick which Beggs again scored from to level the match and give the home side a well deserved share of the points although yet another Beggs free kick was well held by Hestons keeper Allan Gordon with only five minutes left to play.

A share of the points was arguably a fair result in a very good contest well refereed by South league newcomer Jim Thomson from Dalbeattie.  One of the main points of the match however was the fact that in the wake of Newtons poor disciplinary record from last season being released by the SFA they did not receive any cards although their visitors did pick up three yellows.

Newton Stewart; Leith, Henry, Walsh, Blain, Richardson, Beggs, Smith, Fisher, Sean Taylor, Dunn, Cloy, Subs; McCulloch, McKie, Hyslop, Fyfe and Cuthbertson.

Heston Rovers; Gordon, Kilpatrick, N. Adamson, McGee, Millar, Kevan, Tweedie, McCrone, Taylor, R. Adamson, Subs; McCulloch, Stevenson, McGill, Wright and Gibson.

Referee – Jim Thomson, Dalbeattie