Buckie Thistle climbed to second place in the Highland League table and made it nine league wins in a row with a hard-fought victory over 10-man Turriff United at Victoria Park.
Late goals from Sam Pugh and substitute Marcus Goodall were enough to give Graeme Stewart’s side the victory.
The Buckie boss praised his side’s team spirit but wasn’t impressed with their display.
He said: “We didn’t play well. The injuries we have are not an excuse and the pitch wasn’t great either but that can’t be helped and it’s the same for both teams.
“I’m delighted with the win but we need to do better. To be fair to them, the boys battled all the way to get the win.
“They (Turriff) played okay and might have deserved a point, but they didn’t threaten us second half at all.
“Marcus Goodall made a difference when he came on. We’ve missed him and he wasn’t supposed to be on the bench today as he’s still feeling his hamstring.”
On winning their ninth league game in a row: “We need to keep winning. No one else at the top is slipping up and we’ve another tough game at Keith next weekend.”
Turriff manager Dean Donaldson was frustrated with Ethan Smith’s early red card.
He said: “The sending off was very disappointing.
“It’s a lazy challenge, even if he (Scott Adams) goes through and scores, we have 89 minutes left to pull it back.
“We defended well enough from there, but we need to take our chances against teams like Buckie.
“It’s a transitional season for us, we’re trying to improve these young lads in every department and hope they can kick on from there.”
Turriff made a disastrous start to the match when Ethan Smith pulled down Scott Adams as he raced onto Kevin Fraser’s through ball in the opening minute. Ref Graham Beaton deemed it to be a goalscoring opportunity and showed Smith a red card.
Turriff had the best chance so far in the 20th minute, but Keir Smith put his volley straight at Kevin Main from 10 yards.
Buckie missed a glorious chance to go ahead right on half time, Jack Murray getting on the end of a superb ball in from Andrew MacAskill, but he could only direct his header tamely wide.
Murray had a header cleared off the line just beyond the hour mark, then Matthew Mcdonald broke clear only to dink his effort beyond both Main and the far post.
The home side finally broke through eight minutes later when, from a MacAskill free kick, Murray headed the ball back across goal for Pugh to fire home from close range.
Buckie sealed the win in injury time, Goodall latching onto a long clearance from a corner to race forward and slot a cool finish into the far corner from 15 yards.
