Fraserburgh manager Mark Cowie was pleased his side responded to their Scottish Cup disappointment with a 7-0 Breedon Highland League win against Strathspey Thistle.
The Broch were knocked out of the cup by Sauchie Juniors, but remain top of the Highland League with 28 points from 10 games.
Boss Cowie said: “We knocked the ball about well, we created a lot of chances, we were impressive defensively.
“We had every ingredient that we were missing last week against Sauchie.
“It was the response we were looking for, I would rather we hadn’t had to look for that response.
“But to a man we were at it from the word go, we didn’t give much away defensively and scoring seven goals speaks for itself in terms of the attacking play.”
It took Fraserburgh seven minutes to open the scoring at Bellslea with Grant Campbell finishing from 20 yards.
Sean Butcher was on target soon after and Campbell’s long range volley made it 3-0.
Scott Barbour turned in the fourth on 27 minutes from Gary Harris’ cross and added the fifth two minutes into the second half.
Barbour completed his hat-trick after an hour and Lewis Duncan rounded off the rout with a strike from 20 yards in the 76th minute.
Strathspey boss Charlie Brown said: “We’re disappointed with the result, I said to the boys I wasn’t embarrassed because I think Fraserburgh will win the league and they could do that to a few teams.
“But I was disappointed with the way we rolled over and let them dominate us.
“There was no fight from us and that was the disappointing. Even though they are one of the better teams we shouldn’t be letting them roll us over like that.”
Huntly ease to victory against Fort William
Early goals in each half saw Huntly recorded a 3-0 home win over bottom of the table Fort William.
Huntly boss Allan Hale was disappointed his side did not win by a greater margin.
He said: “The only criticism of the second half performance was that we didn’t score more. It could’ve been a higher and more convincing score.
“When we play with the level of intensity we did today, we’re going to be a good team to watch. I though the performance was more convincing than the scoreline suggests and we didn’t offer Fort William any opportunity to get back into the game.”
Hale’s side scored twice inside the first 11 minutes. He added: “We asked before the game that the players start the game with that intensity and get ourselves opportunities to score goals and we did that really well following up the first with a quick-fire second.”
In the seventh minute, Gavin Elphinstone got down the right wing and crossed for Joel MacBeath to bundle in from close range with his first goal for the club.
The hosts were awarded a penalty four minutes later when their trialist was fouled by Alexander White. From the resultant spot kick, Greg Buchan struck high inside the post for his third of the season.
Fort had a chance to level on the quarter-hour mark when Marios Avraam made a run in behind the home defence only for his effort to go by the upright.
The visitors were dealt a blow in first half stoppage with captain Aidan Taylor having to be carried off and replaced by Darren Brew.
Huntly added a third only eighty seconds following the restart as Jack MacIver fired high inside the post to net his first goal for the club.
It was an eight successive defeat to Huntly for Fort William with coach Tommylee Taylor unhappy seeing his side concede twice early on.
He said: “It puts you immediately on the backfoot when you go out positive then give away a cheap goal and a soft penalty and go behind.
“The players responded well but it was already an uphill battle.
“We had a good chance midway through the half and if Marios (Avraam) puts that one away it would’ve given the players a lift. Unfortunately it didn’t happen and we then conceded an early goal inside at the start of the second half.”
