Elgin City defender Matthew Cooper felt thorough preparation paid off as the Borough Briggs men avoided turning a setback into a slump.
After a 3-1 defeat away to struggling Albion Rovers the previous weekend, Elgin bounced back in style with a 2-0 win over Stenhousemuir.
The three points – secured with first-half goals from Kane Hester and Brian Cameron – edged the Moray team above Stirling Albion, into second place in the League Two table on goal difference.
Stenny were dealt a blow on 15 minutes when centre-halves Andy Munro and Creag Little clashed heads.
Little was subbed with a nasty gash to his face.
Elgin defender Andy McDonald then lashed an attempted clearance off the onrushing Greig Spence, but fortunately for the home side the ball flew off target.
Stenny sub defender Chris McQueen bulleted a header against his own bar from a Conor O’Keefe cross on the half-hour mark.
Six minutes before the break, the hosts were ahead when a sweeping move between Russell Dingwall, Brian Cameron and O’Keefe saw the latter’s cross chested down by Hester and rifled home for his seventh goal of the season.
Five minutes later, it was 2-0 as Josh Peters and McDonald both had shots blocked, but Dingwall slid the ball into the path of Cameron, who scored from close range.
Elgin were on top for much of the second half and Stenny’s miserable afternoon was complete in stoppage time when Josh Grigor was shown a straight red card for a lunge on Dingwall.
City had earlier confirmed the signing of former Ross County and Raith Rovers midfielder Tony Dingwall on a deal until the end of the season. Dingwall joins younger brother Russell at the club and came on for the final 17 minutes.
Manager Gavin Price said: “Tony hasn’t played in a while, so we will need to bear that in mind.
“We’ll try to get him some football and get him up to speed as quickly as we can.
“Hopefully it can give us a wee bit extra quality in the forward areas.”
Cooper, the former Caley Thistle youth, was delighted with another clean sheet and a victory to follow on from the disappointment of the previous week.
He said: “It was important to get back to winning ways.
“It’s easy for heads to go down after a result like that and you can end up on a run of losing games, so today was massive.
“Stenhousemuir are a good side who are in and around the play-off places as well, so that was a massive win.”
