CLYDEBANK manager Gordon Moffat welcomed his side's first clean sheet of the season as their perfect start to the season continued at St Cadoc’s on Saturday.

A first-half free-kick from Lee Gallacher was enough for the Bankies to earn all three points at New Tinto Park, as both teams finished with ten men after red cards to Ronan Hughes and Frazer Johnstone.

The result makes it four wins from four for the Holm Park side as they sit in second place in the Premier Division, only behind Drumchapel United on goal difference.

Moff admits it could have been a more comfortable ending to the afternoon for his side had they made the most of their man advantage which they held for 25 minutes, and believes getting three points at New Tinto Park shows another sign of progress.

Speaking to the Post, he said: “It was a really solid performance and we probably gave ourselves more work than we needed to do in the last 20-minutes by not killing it off but the main thing was the three points and to get a clean sheet as well.

“We’ve not looked like conceding a lot of goals but we have conceded in each game, although if you look at the context of the goals then 2 of the 3 have been penalties, so we have looked pretty solid despite not keeping clean sheets.

“The boys deserved a clean sheet against Pollok and never got one so I was delighted for the back five that we got it on Saturday.

“We managed to get a point at that venue last year but it’s a ground we’ve had our troubles on in the past against St Cadoc’s and Benburb so it was good to get the win.

“The last 10-minutes was a bit nervy when it never had to be. When they went down to 10-men we never made the most of it by upping the tempo a wee bit – we were in complete control of the ball but I was a wee bit frustrated that we weren’t moving it as fast as we could.”

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Keir Samson was introduced as a second-half substitute for the Bankies having signed for East Kilbride the same morning.

The forward, who finished as top goalscorer for Auchinleck Talbot in the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons, had been heavily linked with the club for a number of weeks.

Moff admits it’s been a long time coming but was delighted to finally secure Samson’s signature.

He explained: “It's been a long one and I thought the deal had been signed on a few occasions.

“There’s been 3-4 weeks of back and forth which is just how it goes sometimes.

“East Kilbride have been fantastic to deal with but they were waiting on things to fall on their side first and then it’s a domino effect.

“We knew Keir wanted to come in and it got to a point where we could get it done and he’ll make a big difference to the squad.”

Bankies were in league action against Darvel yesterday evening [Tuesday] ahead of their first cup game of the season against Ardeer Thistle this weekend.

The League One side have started the season in decent form with three wins from their opening three fixtures with Moff keen to do his homework ahead of their visit to Ayrshire.

He explained: “It’s a tricky tie for us, we’ve had them watched and will watch them again before going through what we have learned with the players on training at Thursday.

“We’re in the fortunate position now that we’ve got a member of staff at every upcoming opponent game which we didn’t quite have last season.

“It was something I wanted to strengthen off the field which has already been valuable to give the players some extra information before a game.”

Kick-off at Ardeer Stadium on Saturday is at 2:00pm.